


Running Uphill

by NHMoonshadow



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Convin, Gavin Reed Redemption, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poor boy’s gonna work for it though, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Suicide, Time Loop, Time Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, repeated character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-10-20 08:51:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NHMoonshadow/pseuds/NHMoonshadow
Summary: Gavin never expected to be one of the lucky few who actually came in contact with his Soulmate. Worldview now shattered, Gavin is left to struggle against time and his own ingrained prejudice to search for a future where the two of them can actually live.Gavin never did know how to back down from a fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the tropiest thing I have ever written. PLEASE, for all that’s holy heed the tags. I promise there will be a happy ending, but I’m gonna be dragging our boys through a whole lot of Hell first. You have been warned!
> 
> Inspired by If You Want Love by NF. This song is 100% responsible for this and I highly suggest you listen to it.

**LOOP #251**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin used his arms to drag himself along the floor. His right leg was dead weight, and was leaving a line of red trailing behind him.

His hand found Connor’s elbow. He grabbed a fistful of jacket and pulled until the android was hauled into his arms. Gavin grit his teeth and groaned, rolling until he was half sitting against the wall and Connor’s head was properly in his lap. Gavin took a moment to breathe through the pain before returning his attention to Connor.

Blood covered them both. Bright splashes of blue and red.

“Connor,” Gavin tapped his face. Cupped his cheek when those brown eyes turned to him. “C’mon, talk to me.”

“I have five minutes and twenty three seconds until deactivation, and you-”

“I’m fine,” he lied. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Gavin was running fingers through hair now, blatantly ignoring the purple smudges where their blood mixed together. His eyes found his own wrist, to the two lines there peeking out in perfect, blue, CyberLife Sans. A name and a serial number.

In a little more than five minutes those bright blue letters would become cracked and gray.

The sign of a passing soulmate.

Gavin knew this. Expected it, even.

His eyes burned, but still he swallowed it down and painted on a grin. “Tell me something else. Just keep talking, yeah?”

Connor looked confused, but Gavin expected that too. Everyone at the precinct would agree that he’s been acting out of character the last few days.

But he hasn’t, not really.

None of them knew. No one understood that it’s been so much more than days.

It’s been so many weeks. _Months_.

Years?

Honestly, Gavin’s lost count.

It always ends the same anyway.

“What-what do you want to know?” Connor asked him, voice going staticy.

 _Everything,_ Gavin wanted to say.

But they never had time for everything. Hell, most times they didn’t have time for _anything._

He pets Connor’s hair again, thinking. “Tell me . . . tell me about your first mission. Something that wouldn’t be written in any stupid report. You saved two lives, right? Wilson and the kid. Tell me about it.”

“Three.”

“What?”

Connor gave him a thirium stained smile. A closed mouth and a small twist of lips. “When I arrived, there was a broken aquarium. It was still mostly intact, but one of the fish was on the floor, distressed. I returned it to the water.”

“No shit?” Gavin huffed a laugh, tipping his head back to thunk against the wall. He could just picture it in his mind. Fresh from the factory Connor, putting his mission on hold to save a fucking fish. “What kinda fish was it?”

“Dwarf gourami.”

Gavin knew jack shit about fish, but that was beside the point. “Describe it.”

And he did. He talked, and Gavin listened and, _fuck_ , this was the closest thing they’d ever had to a casual conversation.

 _Maybe this was the closest I’ll ever get,_ a traitorous part of his brain hissed.

“Detective Reed, I have one minute and fifteen seconds left.”

God, he sounded scared, and Gavin had no way to tell him everything he wanted to. Everything he _needed_ to. To tell him that it would be alright. Not _now,_ maybe, not this time, but in the end it would be. Eventually.

Possibly.

Gavin was working on it.

Fuck, he was so sick and tired of watching Connor die. Hundreds of times, in a hundred different ways, and it never got any easier.

The worst part of watching Connor die is the waiting that comes after. There had been a few times where there had been no real wait at all. A matter of minutes, maybe, before the grief had time to properly set in. From one blink to the next he’d be back in his bed, waking to his asshole of a cat pawing at his face and meowing in a demand for breakfast.

That moment would always come eventually, but it didn’t always come quick. Hours would pass, sometimes days, but that moment would always come.

It never gets any easier.

And today Gavin didn’t want to wait.

As Connor’s timer ticked down Gavin pulled his pistol from its holster, his thumb flicking off the safety.

His face was wet and his vision was blurry, but he looked down at Connor and smiled, ignoring the bright red glare of his LED. His thumb brushed over it soothingly. “Don’t worry, Connor. I’m gonna get it right. I promise. I’ll do better next time and I’m gonna get it right.”

Connor’s time ran out, the android falling quiet and still.

Gavin put the gun to his own temple and fired.

 

**LOOP #252**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke at 4:30am to a swat to the face. He blinked at the gray tabby sitting on his chest. Seeing that his human was awake, the little bastard spun and launched off of Gavin’s stomach to go scream bloody murder by his bedroom door. If he actually rolled out of bed, the fur ball would lead him right to his empty food dish.

Fucking cat.

Gavin laid there for a moment longer, taking in the reset. The lack of pain and blood, and the realization that the skin on his left wrist was bare. No name, no serial number, just empty space where his soul mark should be. Will be.

He threw his other arm over his face and breathed harshly as he fought back the sting of tears.

In a few minutes he’d get up and take a shower to wash away the memory of something that hasn’t happened yet. That would hopefully never happen again.

_This time will be better._

Eventually Gavin was gonna get it right.

There had to be a way.

 

**LOOP #1**

**November 11, 2038**

 

The whole situation was fucked. Beyond fucked, even.

Insane. Impossible.

Gavin felt like the punchline to some cosmic joke, only nobody was laughing.

His body still throbbed from the beating that plastic piece of shit gave him in the evidence locker. He resisted the urge to scratch at the stitches on his cheek, courtesy of his face meeting the floor. He rummaged through his cupboards until he found a bottle of rum stashed behind boxes of breakfast bars.

He twisted off the cap and took a swig straight from the bottle.

His eyes caught a flash of blue on his wrist and he scowled.

Gavin turned and stalked into the living room, nearly tripping over Briggs as the fuzzy bastard zipped between his legs on his way to his food bowl.

 _Fucking cat,_ he thought, taking another swig.

Maybe if he became drunk enough, today would disappear. Hell, maybe the last _few_ days would disappear.

Because, seriously. What the fuck.

Bad enough that he had to suffer the embarrassment of being found by the FBI. No one likes the Feds, not even Gavin, and the prick that they had sent down to Detroit threw his weight around like he owned the place. As far as Perkins was concerned, all of the DPD were incompetent assholes.

Being found knocked out by CyberLife’s shiny new toy certainly hadn’t helped with that impression.

Then Fowler went and _benched him_ as soon as the paramedics made their assessment of Gavin’s injuries. One hospital trip and six stitches later and Gavin was under strict orders to rest for a few days before returning to work.

Probably for the best, in the long run.

Better to discover this mockery of a soul mark in the privacy of his own home than to become a sideshow attraction in public.

When he first saw it, he thought it had been some disgusting prank. Something left to humiliate him with, one last jab given to him while he was knocked out.

It wasn’t until he tried to scrub it off did the cruel reality of it set in.

The crisp blue letters remained stamped on the inside of his left wrist, mocking him.

CONNOR RK800

#313 248 317 -51

A soul mark.

A _fucking soul mark!_

Gavin’s whole existence, upended in two little lines.

Because androids were machines! They were walking lumps of alloy and plastic, they weren’t alive, they couldn’t be soulmates, because they didn’t have _souls._

They _didn’t._

Right?

Gavin had left the TV on, and now the news was broadcasting the latest on the whole android fiasco, information banners scrolling along the bottom of the screen as live footage rolled. Gavin sat on his coffee table, rum burning a path down his throat as he watched events unfold in Hart Plaza.

Disgust, anger and doubt twisted in his gut like a nest of writhing snakes. The conflict was wreaking havoc on his thought process, because what he _knew_ was now at war with what he was _seeing_ and he didn’t know how to reconcile the two.

He watched the FBI attack with guns and grenades as the androids held their ground, individuals scrambling to protect one another even as they fell one by one. He watched as the remaining survivors faced a firing squad and _sang_ , their voices lifting up and chilling Gavin right down to his core.

 _Maybe . . ._ Gavin’s mind whispered, traitorously. _Just maybe . . ._

He refused to let the thought consolidate, but it was already there, like a virus finding a foothold. The more it spread, the more twisted up he became.

Maybe if he drank the whole bottle he could drown out that whole line of thinking.

After all, Gavin didn’t know how to be wrong about something so big.

He just didn’t _know._

What he did know is that it was enough for President Warren to order a cease fire.

The news switched to another location, a birds eye view from a helicopter showing a literal swarm of freshly minted androids pouring out of Cyberlife tower. And as the camera zoomed in Gavin saw a familiar face leading the march, the only one wearing black and grey in a sea of white.

Connor.

Gavin lowered the bottle from his lips.

It could be someone else **.** After all, whole lines of androids share the same face.

But then a memory floated up, an offered coffee cup and a harsh dismissal. _Prototype,_ the android had said.

Didn’t prove anything though.

A close up the android’s serial number could confirm it, but Gavin didn’t care.

He _didn’t._

The events moved on, helicopters and security drones streaming the events across the nation.

Gavin watched with millions of others as the android leader announced their freedom to its people and the world.

Watched as the android abruptly fell, gunned down by one of their own, the guilty party standing there with a literal smoking gun.

Connor stood behind the fallen leader, gun in hand, and placed the barrel to his own chin. A second gunshot.

The bottle of rum slipped from Gavin’s fingers to spill all over the floor.

The roiling emotions in his gut froze over, numb.

 _Might not be Connor,_ some part of Gavin whispered. _It might not . . ._

His eyes drifted down to his wrist. His whole body trembling as he watched the vibrant blue letters fade to a dull, cracked grey.

The last bit of proof Gavin would ever need.

Connor really was his soulmate.

And now Connor was dead.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**LOOP #1**

**February 14, 2011**

 

Gavin’s mother was addicted to soap operas.

He never saw the appeal, himself. There was so much unnecessary _drama_. It was all lying, backstabbing, and cheating, and nothing ever got resolved. No, it got worse until it became a tangled mess, making everything even more convoluted.

But the more over the top it was, the more his mother seemed to enjoy them.  She would always binge-watch her favorite on Valentine’s day, and she always somehow tricked him into joining her.

“That’s gross,” Gavin moaned, as two reunited lovers sucked face excessively on the screen.

“It’s romantic!” His mother argued playfully, tossing a popcorn kernel at his nose.

He swatted it away, scowling at her. He huffed, crossing his arms and sinking deeper into his corner of the couch. “Whatever.”

She patted his knee and shook it.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“No way! Not in a million years!”

“No way, huh?” She smirked and poked his ribs right where she knew he was ticklish. He smacked at her hands in self defense. “What if you get lucky and meet your soulmate? Would that still be gross?”

Gavin squirmed away and considered it.

Would it still be gross if it was his soulmate?

Everyone in his class was fascinated with the topic of soulmates and so it was often gossiped about. None of Gavin’s classmates had parents who were soulmates, but two of Gavin’s teachers were. They never made a display of it, of course. They mostly kept to wearing long sleeves, and staying strictly professional when teaching. But word traveled fast at Gavin’s school. By Friday of their first week, every kid on campus knew.

He couldn’t help but think of them now.

Gavin saw them together once, during lunch recess. Gavin had forgotten something in class, and when he came back for it he saw the two of them sharing a container of pasta salad. They were sitting on top of the desk together, sitting shoulder to shoulder, smiling. They weren’t even doing anything, they were just talking as they passed their lunch back and forth, voices warm and affectionate.

They weren’t being gross or mushy, they were just sitting there, keeping each other company. Just hanging out.

And clearly, they were happy.

Was that what being with your soulmate was like?

Because if it was, then he was okay with that.

Gavin lifted his chin, refolded his arms, and pointedly looking away from his mother’s knowing eyes. “Well, I _guess_ that would be okay, then. But _only_ ‘cause it’s my soulmate.”

She smirked and grabbed another fistful of popcorn. “That’s so generous of you.”

“Shut up!”

She laughed.

  


**LOOP #2**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke to a swat to the face.

Feeling like he hadn’t slept at all, he groaned and rolled over. The sudden move worked to dislodge the annoying fur ball he called his cat and allowed him to face plant properly back into his pillow. Not one to be denied, the tabby began to walk all over his back and shoulders yowling all the while.

Grunting under the cat’s weight, Gavin grabbed his phone and dragged it over to his face to check the time.

He strangled another groan.

“Fuck off, Briggs,” he growled into his pillow. “It’s four fucking thirty. You can wait, you asshole.”

Briggs meowed once more before he launched off the small of Gavin’s back to go scream bloody murder by the bedroom door.

Experience told him he wasn’t going back to sleep until the cat food bowl was refilled to acceptable levels.

He sighed, then tossed back the covers.

Once Briggs had his food topped off and a fresh bowl of water, Gavin promptly fell back into bed, intent on sleeping at least another six hours.

He hadn’t quite hit the two hour mark when his phone rang.

Knowing it was someone he didn’t want to talk to he answered without looking.

“What?” He barked.

“Oh that’s nice,” a familiar voice chimed on the other end, tone sweet in a way it became before turning razor sharp. “How about not standing me up, asshole.”

Tina had called him.

Tina was talking to him.

He nearly fumbled his phone as he sat up. “What?” He repeated dumbly.

A sigh. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

Fuck.

Just how much did he drink last night?

“Uh . . .”

“Figures.” Another sigh, this one softer. “Anyway! I was promised breakfast, and I don’t care how late a night you had, I expect you to deliver. So drag your lazy ass outta bed and get down here.”

“I- uh, okay.” He wasn’t gonna argue with her. The two of them hadn’t talked since . . . well.

Since.

And he had no clue what his drunken ass said to her last night, but, quite frankly, he didn’t care.

“Um. Usual spot?”

“Yep. Move your ass.”

Then Tina hung up on him.

Gavin sprung out of bed, pulling on clothes in record time without really thinking about it. The jeans from yesterday still seemed relatively clean and he slipped on the first long sleeve his fingers found. He stepped into the bathroom to pop some painkillers for the pending hangover, and a quick swish of mouthwash. Shoes on and jacket it hand, he went to grab his wallet and keys from his bedside dresser and paused.

His gun and his badge were sitting there innocently on top of his keys.

Frowning, he grabbed those as well, strapping on his holster and clipping his badge onto his belt. Maybe Tina would say something to jog his memory, because obviously he got blackout drunk last night.

The drive over to Pete’s Diner was blissfully short, barely a five minutes down the road, and he parked next to Tina’s car.

He found Tina in their usual booth, food and coffee already ordered and waiting at the table.

“You’re still paying,” she told him pointedly as she stabbed at the omelette on her plate. And that was that. The rest of their meal was spent with a nostalgic amount of banter. It was so painfully _normal_ that it set Gavin on edge, but he was willing to play along. If she wanted to go about this like nothing had happened, then he was more than okay doing the same.

Pretending the problem didn’t exist was usually Gavin’s tactic, after all, but he didn’t question it.

Eventually Tina checked the time and then pulled on her jacket with some regret. “Come on. We better head out before we’re late.”

“Late?”

“For work, jackass.” Upon seeing his expression, she frowned in mild concern. “Are you okay?”

He must have been on one hell of a bender last night. He was grateful he managed to avoid the physical repercussions, but really should check his phone to see if he had any other conversations he doesn’t remember having.

Because, according to his memory, Fowler had refused to give him an official return date. When pressed, all he would give Gavin a _look_ and then say sternly, “It’s pending evaluation.”

Apparently, ‘pending evaluation’ had somehow turned to ‘cleared for duty’.

Shit. Just how fucking drunk did he get last night?

Pretty fucking drunk by his estimates.

But the longer he continued with his day, the more he felt that something was off. The feeling had been lingering there since he sat down with Tina at Pete’s, but his first real clue was when they walked into Central Station.

There were androids manning the front desk.

Gavin’s steps faltered as he stared.

Tina breezed past them like they weren’t even there, or like they _should_ be there, and if she wasn’t saying anything about it, well, then he wasn’t either. He gave them a side-eye, but he kept his mouth shut and marched on back into the bullpen.

The bullpen was . . . Quiet.

Not ghost town quiet, but a lull-in-the-action kinda quiet that was common prior to androids announcing to the world that they were alive. There were androids back here too, several units waiting idly at there assigned stations, clearly awaiting orders.

As if blue blood hadn’t been spilling in the streets, televised for the the whole goddamn world to see. As if the whole world hadn’t been watching when a gun was drawn and-

 _No_.

No, he brushed that thought aside viciously.

He had the sudden urge to rub at his left arm. He angrily shoved his hands into his pockets to resist the urge and glared daggers at the nearest android as he walked by. He scowled when the damn thing didn’t so much as blink at him.

Tina was giving him a _look,_ but all he did was shake his head at her and mumble that he needed coffee.

It was kind of her not to mention that he downed nearly half a pot at breakfast. Instead, she followed him into the break room as he went about making a cup for the both of them.

The itch was still there, fierce and insistent, so he needed to do something with his hands.

Gavin’s instincts were screaming at him as he mixed in two different ratios of sugar and half and half. He couldn’t really pinpoint the cause, and as a result he was left unsettled and tense and it was getting worse by the minute.

Something was wrong with the world around him, he could feel it down to his bones.

Finally giving in to the urge, Gavin pushed up his sleeve a bit to rub at his wrist with his thumb. His eyes flickered towards it without his permission, expecting to see the last few digits of a greyed out serial number.

His heart stopped.

It was blank.

Gavin shoved his whole sleeve back to his elbow.

And was met with empty skin.

“What the hell?” He breathed, tracing where the letters should be with the pads of his fingers.

Something twisted hard and painful in his chest.

What did this mean? _What the fuck did this mean?_

He’d never heard of an entire soulmark up and disappearing altogether, not without loss of limb anyway. But then again, he’d never heard of soulmates being anything other than flesh and blood humans.

Bitter resentment crept into his mind, harsh and vicious and aimed at himself.

All his life he had wanted to see a name, _any name,_ on his arm. But when he got one, all he wanted was to see it _gone_ because it belonged to a walking talking computer.

It wasn’t what he had wanted, but it had been _his_ , and it was all he had left of his Soulmate.

But it was gone.

He had nothing left.

They always said be careful what you wish for, right?

He began to laugh, somewhat hysterically. Because if he didn’t, then he’s start crying, and wouldn’t that make a great first impression on his first day back?

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head or something? You’re starting to scare me a bit.”

He looked over at Tina. He had never seen such naked worry on her face before, and it didn’t belong on her face.

God, he was a shitty friend, wasn’t he? He couldn’t even explain himself, because the only evidence he had to prove it was gone.

Gavin tugged down his sleeve and popped lids onto both cups of coffee.

He offered Tina her cup before plopping at the table next to her, the motion familiar but not comforting. Not with such a massive secret sitting between them.

“Gavin?”

He offered her an empty grin and a shrug, rolling his own cup between his hands. “Sorry, could have sworn I got a crappy tattoo last night”, he lied. “Trust me, you’d be glad it was a dream too.”

Such a shitty friend.

He sipped his scalding hot coffee and tried to pretend that everything was okay.

And then Connor walked into the room.

_But this couldn’t be Connor, because Connor was dead._

Gavin leapt to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the floor.

The android turned to look at him, it’s stupid face mildly curious and LED glowing a calm and steady blue.

Blue like thirium on snow.

Gavin was immediately thrown back to the last time he had seen that face on television. Back to the crack of gunfire, of two bullets fired from the same gun. One for the revolutionary leader and one for-

“Connor?”

But this wasn’t Connor. He watched his mark turn grey.

This wasn’t him.

 _Prototype,_ Gavin remembered him saying, right here in this room.

This wasn’t Connor.

This was another piece of plastic that was wearing his face.

Fuck, he couldn’t breathe.

“Gavin?”

“Are you alright, Detective Reed?”

Gavin saw movement in the corner of his eye. Unthinkingly, he smacked away the hand that was reaching for him.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” he snarled, expression turning vicious as he felt an itch creep up his left forearm.

Connor was dead.

His Soulmate was _dead_ , and this fucking _imposter_ was standing there as if he had any right to be wearing his face.

Fuck him.

And _fuck_ Cyberlife for sending him!

Anger and heartache twisted up into a blind rage, building under his skin before boiling over.

Gavin lunged forward, throwing his whole body weight into the fist that cracked squarely against the fucker’s jaw. The android stumbled back with the force of the impact and Gavin closed the distance, planting his forearm against his chest to slam him back into the doorframe.

The bastard’s LED flashed yellow before returning to a steady blue.

“Stay the fuck away from me! You got it, you plastic prick?”

Gavin shoved off and stormed out of the room.

And right into a ghost.

All the color drained from Gavin’s face.

“You gotta problem, Reed?” Hank demanded.

Gavin stumbled back, shaking his head.

Then he ran.

 

He discovered his soulmark when he got home.

It was right there where it should be, in perfectly crisp CyberLife Sans.

 

CONNOR RK800

#313 248 317 -51

 

Only now it was bright and vibrant and _blue_.

  


**LOOP #2**

**November 11, 2038**

 

Gavin convinced himself that he was stuck in an extremely lucid dream.

Sure, he’d never had a lucid dream in his life, but who was to say that this wasn’t what they were like? All too real, and full of details he would rather not have to remember, much less relive.

So he hid himself away from the world. He shut off his phone, made sure the deadbolt was on the door, and ignored anyone who came knocking.

But now it’s been days and he was beginning to doubt he would wake up. At least, he doubted that he would wake up until this fucked up dream caught up to his just as fucked up reality.

He couldn’t hide today, though.

Today he was glued to the couch as he followed the news.

He watched it all go down just like it did in Gavin’s memory. A horrible, high definition replay of the worst day of Gavin’s life. He watched as the President ordered the ceasefire. Watched the flood of androids pour out of CyberLife. He kept watching even as it grew closer to the worst of it, because he couldn’t look away, hoping against hope, that this time things would end differently.

But no.

Two shots were fired during a speech.

Gavin was already well and drunk by the time it happened. After the first shot fired he closed his eyes and took a long pull straight from the bottle, just so he wouldn’t see the his soulmark bleed out to grey after the second.

Maybe if he didn’t watch it then it would hurt less.

It didn’t.

It took impressively little time for Gavin to drink himself into a blackout.

  


**LOOP #3**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke to a swat to the face.

He stumbled out of bed to feed his demanding cat and then promptly face planted back into bed.

Tina called at six, demanding to know where he was.

Dread settled in his chest.

  


**LOOP #8**

**November 11, 2038**

 

It took five more go rounds of the same fucked up series of events Gavin to admit to himself that he wasn’t dreaming.

He watched his mark once more fade to grey and wondered how many more times he had to do this.


	3. Chapter 3

**LOOP #22**

**November 8, 2038**

 

Gavin realized he was just going through the motions.

He had been going through the motions for the last few times actually, if he was being honest. Gavin pretended that this was just business as usual. He kept going through the same handful of days, acting out the role he knew he was supposed to fill. It was so easy when you knew what to expect, because nothing ever changed.

Gavin was sick of it.

So this time Gavin was trying something different.

This time he was determined to keep his distance from Connor. Maybe if he never made the connection, never made proper skin contact, then he’d be free of this bizarre version of Groundhog Day.

Maybe.

That was the hope anyway.

But it was harder than he expected. Avoiding Connor completely was impossible when he kept getting dispatched to the same crime scenes, but by now he knew the script. It became stupidly easy to avoid touch when you knew exactly where someone was going to be and when.

But, surprisingly, that wasn’t the difficult part.

What was difficult was his missing soulmark.

Gavin had no idea how wrong it would feel to deliberately leave his arm bare when he knew exactly who his soulmate was.

But that was also part of the problem, wasn’t it? Actually knowing who his soulmate was. _What_ he was. Even after all this time he still had a hard time processing it, so most days he tried not to think about it.

Though that didn’t stop him from missing the mark like a missing limb.

Tracing it through the fabric of his shirt had become something of a habit, especially when he got lost in thought. He knew where each letter and number was supposed to be, he had memorized it ages ago. It was right there, permanently imprinted on his mind and if given the chance he could map out their intended location on his skin. If given a marker he could draw it out himself, but he had never seen a marker the correct shade of blue.

And grey was out of the question.

Gavin sat at his desk as he traced over the empty space now, letting his middle finger draw where each character should be. He let his mind drift as he pretended to read a case file he already knew the contents of.

But all he could think of was the missing mark as he drew it out with the pad of his finger.

 

CONNOR RK800

#313 248 317 -51

 

What did he actually know about Connor?

Hell, what did Gavin know about any android? He’d spent years loathing the damn things, despised the fact that they had ever been created. Now he didn’t know how to feel. Gavin tried doing some research, to see if it would help him make sense of all this bullshit. Of course he came up empty handed. Even with extensive research, he had never found any mention of anyone else with a soulmate that was anything less than human.

Did all androids have souls, or was Connor the exception?

He thought of the FBI’s attack on the revolution’s final demonstration and realized he already knew.

Not like it mattered.

If this idea of his worked, then he would be done living his life on repeat.

He could move on and pretend that all of this really was a nightmare.

One more time. Just one more time, and this could all be over.

  


**LOOP #23**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke to a swat to the face and knew he would never be that lucky.

  


**LOOP #28**

**November 7, 2038**

 

For  the first time Gavin attempted to learn more about Connor. As in Connor specifically, not androids in general, or soulmates in particular.

Not that he was able to dig particularly deep. A few web searches later yielded a few news articles about the same hostage situation and not much else.

Gavin remembered hearing Captain Allen yapping about that case. Dad murdered by the family android, who then held the daughter at gunpoint at the edge of the building. They lost one badge that night and another had been hospitalized. An android negotiator had been assigned to the scene, and had managed to secure the little girl to give the snipers their shot. Allen’s SWAT team had been the one on scene, and the whole lot of them just wouldn’t shut up about it for days.

He hadn’t known that the android negotiator had been Connor.

It was a pitiful amount of knowledge to gain, but it was one hundred percent more than Gavin knew yesterday.

  


**LOOP #28**

**November 8, 2038**

 

When Stratford Tower happened, Gavin insisted on going. It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get Fowler to dispatch him with the others.

Out of the entire SWAT, Wilson was the only one he was amiable terms with, and so was likely his best source of information. This was the only time where he knew exactly where Wilson would be. Sure, Anderson and Connor would be rolling through eventually, but it was a large crime scene. Between that and the Feds roving around, Gavin was sure he could deal.

He found Wilson on scene and when they had a moment alone, Gavin made his move. He sidled up next to the man as he watched the recording of Markus’ declaration, and asked “Didn’t you work another rouge android case a while back?”

Wilson spared him a glance, nodding. “Yeah, back in August. I was just thinking about that, too. Some wild stuff, man.” He looked back at Gavin. “You know I got shot that night, right?”

Gavin blinked. “That was you?”

He knew it had been one of them, but he honestly had no idea that it had been Wilson.

“That was me,” Wilson confirmed, then shook his head. “Damn near bled out on that roof. If Connor hadn’t applied a tourniquet when he did, I never would’ve seen my family again.”

“ _Connor_ did?”

He nodded. “Mmhm.”

Today was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?

Wilson carried on, unknowing that he was throwing Gavin for a loop. “Paramedics were on standby, but the deviant wasn’t letting anyone else out on the balcony, shooting at everything. It shot Connor too, but I didn’t learn that till later. The thing tried to warn him away from me, threatening to kill him, but Connor didn’t listen. You know what he said back?”

Gavin could only shake his head. He had no clue.

“You can’t kill me, I’m not alive.”

The line sat raw and wrong in Gavin’s ears. He looked up at the screen that was still displaying Markus’ bare face and his thoughts churned. Gavin nodded at the image. “This one would disagree with that.” Gavin shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to act like he cared as much as he did. “What about you? Do you think these guys are alive?”

“I don’t know what I think. But what I _know_ is that Connor didn’t have to save me. I’ve gone over the mission brief so many times, I know damn well it wasn’t required to. But Connor _chose to_. I can’t get it out of my head.” Wilson gave Gavin a look. “What about you, Reed? Do you believe that androids are alive?”

Gavin dodged his stare as he fought the need to trace his left arm. He angrily shoved his hands in his jacket pockets to keep them still. He looked up at the image of Markus before giving Wilson an honest answer. “I think I’m starting to.”

  


Gavin was wrapping up just one last thing in the hall when shit went down.

It all happened so fast that it was hard to register what was going on at first. A worker android got stopped as he was trying to hustle past the officers and FBI agents gathered in the hall behind. Gavin had paid it no mind, intent on wrapping up his share of the work.Then in flies Connor, white dress shirt open and splashed liberally with blue blood across his chest and hands. There was a flurry of movement behind Gavin, shouting, scrambling but all he could see was Connor.

“It’s a deviant! Stop it!”

Someone beside Gavin was now grappling him for his sidearm. He barely registered that he was fending off an android, LED a bright red, before four shots went off in rapid succession.

The deviant fell dead to the floor and Gavin backed away until he bumped into a wall.

Gavin looked back at his soulmate who was just standing there at the end of the hall, cold and emotionless as he wordlessly offered an FBI agent his gun back without even looking at him.

“Nice shot, Connor,” Anderson said.

Gavin hadn’t realized that the man had been standing just down the hall.

“I wanted it alive,” Connor said in response. The words were almost bitter.

As if he was disappointed.

As if he hadn’t just protected every human currently in the room.

As if he hadn’t just fired a gun his programming shouldn’t even allow him to _touch._

Gavin couldn’t look away.

Hank was saying something else now, but this time Gavin couldn’t hear. As he spoke, Connor’s eyes landed on Gavin and for an instant he swore something softened. It was there in his eyes, in his posture, so brief, so subtle, that it was gone in a blink. But Gavin saw.

Someone was asking him if he was injured, and all he could do was shake his head in response. He watched as Anderson took Connor by the shoulder and steered him away. For all the blue blood splattered across his shirt, he seemed to be moving just fine. Whatever the damage was, it was probably minor.

But what the fuck did Gavin know about androids?

Next thing he knew he was rushing forward, chasing after them.

“Hey, hey, wait.” He grabbed at Connor’s sleeve, yanking the android back around. “Why’d ya do that?”

Connor had no reason to, he had no way of knowing what Gavin was to him. Gavin hadn’t made the connection yet, not this time around, his empty skin a testament to him keeping his distance.

“You got a problem, Reed?”

Anderson looked one wrong word away from getting physical. Gavin was impulsive by nature, but he recognized the protective stance the Lieutenant was taking on, even though he hadn’t seen it in three years.

Not since the man’s son had died.

“No problem,” Gavin said faintly.

 _You can’t kill me,_ Connor had said after being threatened by one of his own kind. _I'm not alive._

That was a lie, wasn’t it?

Besides the fact that Gavin had seen him take his own life again and _again,_ no simple _machine_ could make Anderson respond like this. No simple machine could ignore a standing law to save lives. If Connor wasn’t alive, then why was Gavin connected to him?

Connor examined him for a long moment before he took his hand to gently pry the fist still clenched on his sleeve. Gavin’s left forearm _burned_ as he became hyper aware of his soulmark searing itself into existence. His hold loosened, the fabric of Connor’s coat slipping from his fingers as the android took a step back and away

Grey eyes met warm brown and Gavin desperately searched his face for any sort of acknowledgement.

He had to have felt that.

How could he _not feel that_?

But Connor gave him nothing. No blink, no twitch, nothing. He just let go of Gavin completely, and let Anderson lead him away. Gavin followed them with his eyes until they were out of sight.

Connor didn’t turn back even once, and Gavin didn’t understand why that left his gut twisting into knots.

He _didn’t._

  


**LOOP #28**

**November 11, 2038**

 

Gavin sat on his coffee table, drinking his bottle of rum as he watched Markus make his great speech on his television. Watched it get cut short, right on cue. One shot, then two.

He watched it all with dead eyes as his mark turned grey.

_You can’t kill me. I’m not alive._

What a fucking liar.

Gavin took another sip and wondered if he really was a terrible person. So terrible that his Soulmate would rather shoot himself than live in the same world together.  

As if in answer, he suddenly remembered the evidence locker. And then the interrogation of the android from the Ortiz case before that.

Gavin choked on a mouthful of rum, sending him into a harsh coughing fit.

Yes, Connor shot himself, but not until after Gavin had tried to do it first. He’d held a gun to Connor’s head with full intent to pull the trigger on multiple occasions. He had shot at his soulmate with full intent to kill. One of those things was permanently etched into the timeline, never to be reset because it happened hours before the restart point.

Connor would forever know that Gavin was willing to aim a gun at him. Even if he hadn’t pulled the trigger then, he had proved himself capable of it.

Gavin could never take that back, no matter how much he wanted to.

And he wanted to.

He _did_.

But that didn’t matter did it?

Fuck.

After that, Gavin couldn’t blame Connor. He wouldn’t want to stay around him either.

 _Fuck_.

His coughing fit turned into full on sobbing, dropping the bottle of rum to the floor so he could bury his face in his hands.

 This was what he deserved, wasn’t it?

  _Fuck._

  


**LOOP #33**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin poured more dry cat food into Briggs’ bowl, absently petting him as the fur ball began to crunch enthusiastically. His thoughts drifted.

Maybe . . .

What if Connor just didn’t _know?_

What if he never realized that Gavin’s name appeared on his arm. If androids didn’t have the same sense of sensation that humans did, then he would never feel the itch of the soulmark appearing. Hell, even _Gavin_ didn’t always realize it at first, and he’d experienced it more than a dozen times now.

What if that’s all it took to keep Connor alive at the end of all this?

What if all he needed was to prove to _Connor_ that he was alive?

It was worth the shot. It wasn’t like he had anything left to lose.

   

   

 

**LOOP #33**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin sat with his feet kicked up on his desk, pretending to be on his phone as he waited for his moment.

He surreptitiously watched the powwow happening over at Anderson’s desk, and waited until the Lieutenant was making a beeline towards Perkins. Gavin hopped to his feet to chase after his soulmate.

“Connor! Hold up a second!”

Hand still on the door, Connor turned to look at Gavin as he jogged up to him. “Can I help you, detective?” Their interactions had been so carefully neutral this time around, but Connor was still being cautious.

“Let me see your hands for a second.”

Connor blinked at him, LED flashing yellow.

Given that he was about to break into the evidence locker, Gavin couldn't blame him for being nervous.

Gavin just huffed impatiently and flapped his hands at the android. “Just let me see. Two seconds and you can get back to whatever the fuck you’re doing. Humor me.”

Connor turned towards him and silently offered up his hands, palms up.

Letting out a tense breath through his nose, Gavin took those hands in his and tried not to think about the fact this was the first time he’d touched Connor intentionally with something besides aggression. His left arm began to itch as his soulmark came to the surface, hidden from view by the heavy sleeved of his jacket. Unable to help himself, Gavin swept his thumbs once over the palms before releasing Connor’s right hand altogether. Fingers hooked in fabric to hike up Connor’s sleeve, just a bit. Just _enough._

Connor met his stare, as pleasantly neutral as he ever was.

He wonders what expression he’ll make after realizing what just happened.

Gavin dropped his eyes to Connor’s exposed skin and felt the bottom drop right the fuck out of his stomach.

Connor’s skin was blank.

Gavin dropped his hand like it burned.

Because it did.

It burned, and burned and Gavin suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“Are you alright, detective?”

_No._

_No he wasn’t._

“I-uh. Never mind,” he muttered, voice tight and constricted as he took a step back, then another. “Forget it.”

Ignoring Connor’s confusion and the burning in his chest, he turned to beat a hasty retreat.

Five minutes later Gavin found himself locked in the men’s room, tracing his soulmark obsessively. Assuring himself that it was there, that he hadn’t imagined it.

 

CONNOR RK800

#313 248 317 -51

 

This was karma. This was the cost of taking his anger and hate out on the world around him. At androids in particular.

Or Gavin was just cursed.

At this point he didn’t know which was better.  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**LOOP #39**

**November 9, 2038**

Gavin’s own skin had confirmed to him again and again that this android was his soulmate. That _Connor_ was his soulmate. So why wasn’t Gavin’s name painted on his arm?

The thought lingered, buzzing around like an angry hornet and Gavin just couldn’t let it go.

It was shocking how badly he wanted to see it. He desperately wanted to see his own handwriting painted on Connor’s skin, and wanted to know what color the words would take.

Because he was a glutton for punishment, and because he didn’t want to face the truth, Gavin tested Connor six more times. Today would mark the seventh go round.

But it would also be the last.

After that first test Gavin started paying a little more attention to the cases he worked on with Connor, studying his movements and his micro expressions. Listening to him closely whenever he could. This time he lingered a bit more at the crime scene of the Eden Club. It kept him long enough to see Connor touching one of the dancers, connecting in that weird way that androids do. Their skin had dissolved up to their elbows, revealing the white frame beneath, and it made Gavin think.

What if he had been going about this the wrong way?

Gavin expected to his name written on pale skin, because that is what he would expect from another human.

But Connor wasn’t human, was he? The skin Gavin was so used to seeing was synthetic, an illusion used to cover their true appearance.

So this was it.

Gavin intercepted Connor outside the evidence locker, intent on finding out once and for all if Connor had a soulmark.

Gavin found that the more obvious he was with what he wanted, the easier Connor was to work with, so he made his approach as direct as possible. This time he had a sharpie in hand, and asked Connor if he could help him settle a bet that didn’t actually exist.

The explanation was bullshit, but Connor still offered up the requested arm with no fuss. Gavin closed his eyes briefly, ignoring the itch on his own arm, and tried to control his heart that was beating wildly in his chest. He made a little ‘x’ on the inside of Connor’s left arm and then asked Connor to remove the surrounding skin. The receding blue lines traveled beneath Gavin’s fingers and was momentarily distracted at the ripple of warmth they left behind.

Gavin’s attention fell to the pristine white of Connor’s arm. No sharpie, and more importantly . . .

“It’s . . . It’s not there.”

He must have looked crushed, because Connor actually looked concerned, at least a little. “I take it you lost the bet, then?” He asked gently.

“Yeah,” Gavin said, voice faint and a little rough from the tightness of his throat. “I lost pretty big.”

He didn’t know how many more times his heart could shatter like this.

 

**LOOP #40**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin was tailspinning, spiraling right into a dark hole of despair and helplessness.

He lost himself in there for a long, _long_ time.

 

**LOOP #61**

**November 8, 2038**

 

Gavin got shot.

He was drunk and hot headed and was itching to pick a fight with anyone who would punch back. He turned all that pent-up aggression at some anti-android assholes outside of a bar he’d never been to before that night.

He didn’t expect one of them to have a gun.

They didn’t expect him to have a badge.

They panicked, leaving him to bleed out in a frozen back alley, hidden behind the trash.

Gavin had fallen into an icy puddle, the biting cold water seeping up through his back. It was at odds with the fire blooming in his chest and the hot throbbing of his face. His phone was in the water beside him, completely dead and useless.

Like him soon.

It might have just been the alcohol, but Gavin felt relief that it would all end here. He would be finally free of this Hell, and he could finally rest.

 

   

**LOOP #62**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke to a swat to the face, and realized he should have known better.

 

**LOOP #84**

**November 7, 2038**

 

Gavin had spent this loop blissfully drunk for the most part.

Usually he just drank at home, nursing his bottle of rum and whatever else he decided to bring home. But not tonight. No, tonight Gavin was just about crawling out of his skin, manic and restless and it sent him out looking for a more thorough distraction.

He found a distraction in the form of a broad shouldered brunette with rough hands and a rougher mouth. And while Gavin found himself pinned to a wall in some nameless motel, all he could think was Connor. The face and build were too different to pretend, but there were enough similarities in the hair and eyes that Gavin couldn’t help but think about it.

What would Connor do if he was the one with his hands on Gavin? Would Connor be this rough, with scratching fingers and biting teeth, or would he be softer, with skating hands and feather light touches?

Could androids even feel desire?

Pleasure?

A deviant might, Gavin thought.

But as far as he knew, Connor hadn’t ever gone deviant. It sure looked like he might at first, whenever Connor led an army out of CyberLife Tower, but then he would go and do a murder-suicide with Markus.

What deviant would ever do that?

All the same, it was all too easy to picture a deviant Connor. Gavin had seen glimpses over time, slightly furrowed brows suggesting impatience, and subtle smiles that were always rare and fleeting at best.

It was all too easy to imagine a full smile, broad and warm, and it was all too easy to see what could have been. For him. For them, if Gavin hadn’t ever pulled a fucking gun on him.

But he did, and Connor would remember that even if he ever became deviant.

It was just one more thing Gavin never gets to have.

As Gavin let a stranger use his body, he tried to lose himself to the pleasure, and tried to pretend that he wouldn’t be sick with shame and completely disgusted with himself in the morning.

   

   

**LOOP #93**

**November 6, 2038**

 

He couldn’t keep doing this. He knew he was lost and adrift and he knew if he didn’t make a real decision soon, he was going to lose himself completely.

 

**LOOP #96**

**November 6, 2038**

 

“Seriously, Gavin. What’s wrong with you?”

Tina sat across from him in their booth at Pete’s.

Gavin tapped his fingers against the mug of coffee in his hands as he avoided Tina’s eyes. He expected the question, of course, he’d been extra squirrelly this morning, so of course she would ask. He needed to tell someone, he’s been alone with his thoughts for so long, and who could he talk to if not his best friend? But how to talk without _telling_?

But even if he did, who cared? The whole city could think he was nuts, but it didn’t matter, because none of them would remember after the next reset.

Eventually, he opened his mouth.

“I used to have this crazy belief when I was a kid. I used to believe that if you found your soulmate, everything would be just fine. The hard part’s done, right? Rest should be easy. I believed that those that couldn’t make it work didn’t fight for it, they didn’t _want it enough_.” He huffed a laugh into his coffee even as he felt his eyes begin to sting. “I mean. Who the fuck wouldn’t fight for their soulmate?”

He wouldn’t. He _didn’t_. Not in the beginning.

And now . . .

Now he wants to. He wants to give it everything he has, but he has no clue how to stop Connor from putting a bullet through his own head at the end of all this.

“It’s not that crazy a belief,” Tina commented, and Gavin hated that he recognized the tone she was using. It was the one she used on distraught witnesses when she was trying to gently probe for more information. Gavin couldn’t even be mad. “But I’m guessing you don’t believe that anymore.”

“Because it’s a lie,” Gavin spat bitterly. One hand slipped away from his coffee mug to begin drumming against the table incessantly. “Because you can try, and _try_ , but sometimes it just doesn’t work no matter _what_ you do.”

It always ends with two bullets.

Unless he dies first.

But that just brings the next loop faster.

“Gavin?”

“What if-” He swallowed harshly and tried again. “What if you find your soulmate but they’re not what you expected? What if the situation is so impossible that you know down to your bones there is no future? Do you still try?” He swallowed again as he tried to work his voice past the lump in his throat. “And if you do, at what point do you give up?”

Tina set her hand on top of his, bringing his drumming to a stom. Her eyes flicked to his wrist, just inches away from her fingers and still hidden by the layers of his jacket. He didn’t have his mark yet, of course not. But he would.

He always did now. He made sure of it.  

Tina didn’t know that, though.

“I know we talk a lot of shit to each other,” She began, still using that tone. “But you’re my friend. And as your friend, I know you can be one stubborn bastard. Since when do you talk about quitting anything?”

_Since I was faced with the inevitable._

“What if . . .” Gavin continued, voice almost completely gone. He’s never admitted this out loud before, and now he didn’t know if he could. “What if . . . One of you doesn’t have a soulmark? You know it’s the right person, without a doubt, but one of you doesn’t have the other’s name. How long do you keep fighting then?”

Lips pursed, Tina examined his face, eyes searching, trying to read the truth there. She gave his hand a light squeeze before gently turning it over. She gave him plenty of time to stop her, but he didn’t bother, letting her push his sleeve up.

After all, his arm was currently blank.

He knew she was going to assume he was the one with the missing mark, and he was going to let her. It was far easier than the full truth after all.

God, he was such a shitty friend.

It didn’t stop his eyes from burning when her face twisted up in sympathy.

“Oh Gavin.”

“I don’t know what to do, Tina,” he choked out.

She look a moment to pick her words. “Do you feel they’re worth fighting for? Name or no?”

Gavin laughed bitterly, pushing his hair back with his free hand. “You know, sometimes I get the feeling that he doesn’t even know himself.”

Which was true enough. If Connor never became deviant, then how could he?

He opened his mouth to continue, but the words got caught in his throat. He had been thinking this for a while now, but this was different. Confessing it to someone else, saying it out loud made it more real. But maybe that was exactly what he needed.

Gavin’s voice was small when he finally answered.

“He could be worth it, Tina. If we ever had a chance, he could be worth it.

A chance besides death.

Was that too much to ask?

Tina nodded and sat back on her bench, crossing her arms. “So, what’s the problem? He married or something?”

If it was only something that mundane.

“No, he’s-” Gavin stopped himself. Tina didn’t need to know Connor was an android. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Then I guess the real question here is what do you want? Do you want a life with this guy?”

A life with Connor?

He’s been trapped thinking about Connor’s death for so long he’s rarely taken the time to think about what life would look like if he actually _lived_.

Would he move in, or would they find a bigger place for the two of them and Briggs. Did Connor even like cats? Androids didn’t need the same things as humans, but would Connor be okay to go and do stupidly domestic things with him? Like grocery shopping, or hell, even sleeping. Androids didn’t need sleep, but would he stay with Gavin while he did? Would he be annoyed with some of Gavin’s habits? Harp on him for bringing work home with him, or his erratic sleep schedule?

Gavin wanted that. He wanted to learn what a life with Connor would look like.

And if Gavin was the only one stuck in this repetitive hell, then he was the one who needed to fix it.

Fuck it.

Connor was _his_ fucking soulmate. Mark or no mark, Connor was _his._ There had to be a way for Connor to survive at the end of this.

Gavin would find a way.

He would.

He refused to believe that there wasn’t a light at the end of this god forsaken tunnel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright my friends! We are about to dive into the real meat of this story! Who’s ready to watch Gavin get in over his head?


	5. Chapter 5

**LOOP #103**

**November 6, 2038**

 

After a few failures trying to poke at things behind the scenes, Gavin tried to do something a little more hands on.

When he was sent out to the Eden Club with Chris, he actually stuck around to work the case instead of bowing out at the first opportunity. It earned him a raised eyebrow from Chris before he left. It also earned an odd look from Lieutenant Anderson, but the man really did smell like booze, so he just shrugged and let Gavin be. Especially after all he did was ask work appropriate questions and listen to Connor as he efficiently investigated the crime scene. First the man, and then the poor android.

 _“Just some pervert who got more action than he could handle,”_ he had said the first time around, laughing at the idiot who actually paid to fuck an android and then ended up dead because of it.

Well, Gavin wasn’t laughing now.

Now he just felt sick as he watched Connor reactivate the poor murdered Traci. Felt his chest tighten as he saw her scramble back in terror before Connor had a chance to say a word.

How was she any different from any other victim of assault? Only, unlike any other witness, she hadn’t actually survived her attack, this was a temporary resurrection at best.

And her last living moments were going to be of Connor interrogating her about the event that actually killed her.

 _Christ_.

From her they learned that there had been a second android in the room. The original report had read that they had searched the building for the missing deviant, but there had been no sign of her.

Gavin trailed closely after Anderson and Connor as the Eden Club androids showed them which way she went. The path led them all the way to the warehouse attached to the back of the building. Confident that their blue-haired Traci was long gone, Gavin let his guard down as he wandered around the floor.  

So imaging his surprise when something solid smashed into the side of his head.

The blow sent him sprawling, the edges of his vision blacking out, leaving the rest of the world in a blurry haze as his head kept ringing. It was a good minute before his vision cleared enough for him to stand. He could here shouts and the sounds of a scuffle, but there was nothing he could do to help.

Gavin’s attacker was long gone by the time he got to his feet.

“You alive over there, Reed?” Hank’s voice rang out, the sheeted off area in the middle of the room blocking Gavin’s line of sight.

“Uh, yeah,” Gavin called back, wincing as his own raised voice made his head throb. “Head’s fucking killing me though. But I’m alive.”

“Good. Just, uh, just keep it that way, yeah?”

There was a strained pitch to the man’s voice that should have clued him in, but his head was still ringing, and it was hard to think through the pain in his skull.

As he rounded the corner, he could see where Anderson was crouching over a still figure on the floor, coat splashed with blue and a screwdriver sticking out of his chest

It was Connor.

Gavin’s legs became boneless and folded as he sat down hard on the floor beneath his feet. Blood that he hadn’t known was pouring down his face was now dripping all over his clothes, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He sat there staring at his soulmate’s body until strong arms eventually hauled him up and out of the building.

It was okay, he told himself. It was just one more failure. The reset will come and he could try again.

  


Hank insisted on taking Gavin to the hospital to have his head looked at.

“You almost had your brains smashed in, you dipshit, of _course_ you’re going to the fucking hospital!”

When he managed to find a moment alone, he pushed up his sleeve a bit to brush his thumb against the tail end of his soulmark. His thoughts were caught on the second android Hank had told him about. As his thumb paused over the last two digits of Connor’s serial number he happened to glance down, and with a jolt he realized two things.

First, that the mark was not cracked and grey as he expected it to be, but bright thirium blue.

And second, the last digit in the serial number had changed. Instead of it reading 51, it now read 52.

He shoved his whole sleeve back to stare at the whole mark. Everything else was the same, just the one altered digit.

What the fuck?

What did that even _mean_?

The rustle of the hospital curtain reminded Gavin that he wasn’t truly alone. He tugged his sleeve back down harshly just in time to hide his soulmark from the frazzled nurse that burst into the room.

He had a moment to think that human nurses were rare, but then realized that Hank must have mentioned to the staff about his anti-android history.

Self inflicted special treatment.

 _Fun_.

The lady began to prod at the side of his head and he hissed at the sharp pain it caused.

“Hey, that actually hurts, you know!”

She just gave an affirmative hum and continued to do her job, ignoring his complaints.

Gavin stewed over the number change right up until he was discharged from the hospital.

He would have stewed over it a lot longer, but Gavin got his answer when he followed Hank back to his car.

“Sweet Jesus,” Hank breathed, causing Gavin to look up and stare.

“What. The. _Fuck_.”

Because there was Connor, waiting for them by the car.

 

   

**LOOP #103**

**November 7, 2038**

 

Gavin spent the rest of the night thinking about it. Connor’s explanation just didn’t sit well with him, the wrongness of it striking multiple chords at once.

One was obvious.

Connor could get his memories uploaded to a new body when damaged enough or destroyed altogether. But it wasn’t just his memories was it? If that was the case then Gavin’s soulmark shouldn’t have changed. Connor’s consciousness transferred from one body to the next, his very _soul_ , whether he realized it or not.

Gavin found himself more and more disgusted with CyberLife with every passing day.

Connor was an insanely expensive model, state of the art, but they’d rather just send a replacement than to fix the current one. Even if Connor _wasn’t_ Gavin’s soulmate it sounded like a frivolous waste of resources, and an unnecessary loss of life.

But what the fuck did Gavin know?

But it did make him wonder.

He wondered why Connor doesn’t get any dropped into a new body on the night of November 11th. No do overs for Connor that time.

Why?

Eliminating Markus was certainly in CyberLife’s best interest if they ever had a hope at returning to their status quo. Gavin was sure rebelling machines were bad for business, there was never any confusion about that.

But what about Connor?

Where was the benefit to having their very own deviant hunter take a gun to himself after the deed was done? Was that something he was _ordered_ to do, or was it something Connor _chose_ to do on his own?

It made Gavin wonder.

And it made him realize he only had a few small pieces of a much bigger picture.

 

**LOOP #103**

**November 11, 2038**

 

Gavin’s mark turned grey a half hour before the news was supposed to show the swarm of androids spilling out from CyberLife Tower.

Connor never emerged with an army at his back.

He never emerged at all.

For the first time Markus finished his speech uninterrupted, but it was to a much smaller crowd than what should have been.

As Gavin sat and wondered what happened, he sat with his cat and his bottle of rum and settled in to wait for the reset.

He had no idea he’d be waiting for nine days.

It was the first time the restart point changed.

But wouldn’t be the last.

 

**LOOP #151**

 

It was a steep learning curve.

The more he pushed and prodded at the timeline the more unpredictable the results were, ranging from bad to worse in absolutely insane ways. Sometimes nothing changed. Nothing that Gavin noticed, anyway,  Realizing there were no long term repercussions for his recklessness, Gavin became rather brazen in his attempts to save Connor.

He made a mental list called ‘shitty ways to die’ and it was getting longer all the time.

 Whoever said that a person could get used to just about anything is a fucking liar. You never got used to dying. You never got used to the pain, especially when you were constantly experiencing it in different flavors. Broken bones felt different than a gunshot, or a knife wound, or the sheer trauma of a long fall.

He never got _used to it._

But he still did it.

 

**LOOP #167**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin circled back to the Eden Club case.

There was one little thing that Gavin couldn’t quite figure out, and it was bothering the crap outta him.

If Gavin sticks close to Hank and Connor the whole time, then Connor usually gets killed. On one memorable occasion Gavin did as well. He hopes Hank didn’t blame himself after that one, but Gavin knew better by now. Thankfully, the man was unaware of their ever looping timeline.

However, if Gavin leaves them alone then they arrive back to the precinct empty handed, but only a little scuffed up.

He wanted to know why.

Mere curiosity more than anything drove him to poke at it one more time.

This time Gavin arrived at the warehouse just in time to see Connor and Red tumble off the back of the loading dock. Hank was closer, grappling with Blue. She managed to get in a lucky shot, knocking the Lieutenant off his feet and allowing her to chase after her friend.

Gavin helps Hank to his feet only to get shrugged off as soon as the man was vertical. They both rushed into the alley behind the Eden Club just in time to see Connor lower Hank’s gun right before Red knocked him on his ass.

There’s a tense moment where no one moves. Gavin stood at Hank’s shoulder and he didn’t dare breath for fear of accidentally setting someone off.

But then Blue began to talk, telling them how she defended herself against a man who would have murdered her. Told them how she was scared she would never see her loved one ever again.

Before Gavin could even question how a relationship could form with constant memory wipes, Red stepped up behind Blue and took her hand. Their fingers laced together as their skin receded, exposing the white polymer below.

“Oh, _Jesus_ ,” Hank hissed under his breath.

Gavin’s heart stuttered in his chest.

Soulmarks.

Right there, in matching thirium blue, were names and serial numbers.

Androids could have soulmarks.

_Androids could have soulmarks!_

But Connor didn’t have one. Gavin knew he didn’t, he had seen it, again, and _again_ , so why-

What was different with these two?

Something clicked in Gavin’s mind, illuminating a theory.

 _Deviancy_.

These two were deviants, and probably had been for a while.

Connor wasn’t a deviant.

But . . .

What if he was? Or had been?

He tried to smother the hope, but his will wasn’t quite strong enough. He _knew_ Connor was his soulmate, it was indisputable _fact_ . He didn’t _need_ to see his name on Connor’s arm, he already _knew_ , but holy _hell_ did he want to.

Just once.

He desperately wanted to see it just _once_.

  


**LOOP #167**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Days later he realized that this meant Hank knew about androids having soulmates.

  


**LOOP #184**

**November 11, 2038**

 

He tried to enlist Hank’s help over a dozen times.

After all, they had almost been friends once, nearly a lifetime ago. Sure that relationship had long since withered and died, but the man was protective of the ones he cared about. And he cared about Connor. So, if nothing else, he was able to get Hank on board with that.

But it never panned out. Gavin still lost Connor, and more often than not, he lost Hank as well.

It wasn’t anything new, really, but seeing it happen again and again was starting to get old.

In the first timeline Hank had gone and ate a bullet in the privacy of his own home. When he heard the news, Gavin remembered being shocked that the old man had actually gone and done it. Gavin then promptly forgot about it as he drowned his own sorrows with alcohol.

Gavin has no idea how many times Hank had committed suicide most of the the other loops. He felt guilty for not caring enough at the time to pay attention, match less remember.

Well, Gavin cared now, and he was seeing a pattern.

If Connor dies, then Hank dies, either by his own hand or helping Gavin.

Gavin wonders if saving Connor could save Hank as well.

No pressure.

So today Gavin was trying a slightly different approach.

He walked up to Hank’s front door, and gave several banging knocks. The goal was to intercept Connor after he collected the androids from CyberLife, and maybe, with Hank’s help, they could talk some sense into his soulmate.

If they could get close enough.

_If, if, if._

That is, if Hank would ever answer his _fucking_ door.

Gavin turned to double check that, yes, Hank’s car was actually parked in the driveway, and had been for a while if the dusting of snow was anything to go by.

He frowned as he pressed the doorbell instead. Hank hated the sound of the damn thing, so this should bring him running.

But there was still no answer.

Something was wrong.

If Gavin was lucky, then he would find Hank in a drunken stupor from one of his binges.

But when has Gavin ever been lucky?

Scared of what he would find, he walked the perimeter of the house. The broken window didn’t set off any alarms to him. He didn’t know how it happened, but he did know it was pre existing to tonight, so he paid it no mind.

What really tipped Gavin off was that Hank’s bear of a dog was whining and scratching at the back door, begging to be let back in. The fresh scratch marks showed that he had been at it for a while.

If Gavin knew anything about Hank, it was that the man treated his dog better than himself. Hank would never leave Sumo outside for so long, not with the weather they’d been having.

Something was definitely wrong.

Nudging the dog over with his leg, Gavin tried the door.

It swung open under his hand.

Sumo barreled past him, barking his way all through the house. Everything else was dead quiet.

It set Gavin’s nerves on edge.

Silently drawing his gun, Gavin searched the house. Besides Sumo whining as he lumbered from room to room, the house was empty.

But there were signs of a struggle.

Some broken glass, some upturned furniture and one bullet hole where Gavin found the slug still buried in the wall.

Hank was gone.

And Gavin had no idea who took him.

 

**LOOP #185**

**November 11, 2038**

 

Gavin got there earlier, determined to find out what happened to Hank

He was surprised to find Connor already there.

It didn’t take Gavin long to realize something was off. There were small tells, in the movement of his hands, in his posture, fuck, even in the way he _spoke_ . All of it seemed _wrong_ , all subtle differences but they were _there,_ and it set Gavin’s hair on end.

Then he noticed his serial number.

After discreetly checking the tail end of his soulmark, Gavin realized that _this was not his Connor._

His Connor was alive somewhere, the mark was still a bright blue, but this was some other RK800 that CyberLife decided to ship out.

Which meant that it was extremely likely that _this_ _was Hank’s attacker._

In true fashion, Gavin reacted instantly, pulling his gun on the impostor without thinking.

The result was very reminiscent of his and Connor’s fight in the evidence locker. Unfortunately for Gavin, it ended just like that fight too, with Gavin knocked out on the floor.

When he came to, the RK800 was gone, and so was Hank.

The bastard had even taken his gun.

“Fuck,” Gavin snarled, wiping away blood from his cheek. His body vibrated with anger even as his head was reeling from the pain. “Fuck! I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch!”

  


**LOOP #195**

**November 11, 2038**

 

After ten more attempts Gavin realized two things.

First, that he was simply no match for the RK800 in close quarters.

The model was too adaptable for him to successfully get the upper hand. The harder Gavin came at him the harder he retaliated. Gavin was pretty sure he managed to actually shoot the fucker the last go round. He didn’t have long to enjoy it before the bastard grabbed him by the chin and the back of his head and _twisted._

Gavin could now add _snapped neck_ to his list of shitty ways to die. At least it was quick. The only thing faster was a bullet. One twitch of a finger and he was waking to Briggs swatting his face.

Point was, _Gavin couldn’t win._

And second, if they kept dispatching this asshole, and he’s specifically going for _Hank_ , it just might mean that that they lost control of the real Connor. _His_ Connor.

So there was a possibility that Connor actually did end up deviant after all.

The thought should have made him smile, but no.

The more he learned, the more questions he had, and the less he understood.     Now he laid down on the couch with his left forearm flopped over his face, and his right dangling over the edge of the cushions where his fingers still clutched tight to an empty rum bottle. The TV was on but he had muted it hours ago. He didn’t need to hear it tonight, he’s already hearing the echoes of gunfire in his head, he didn’t need to hear it in real time as well.

Below the ghosts of gunfire Gavin’s thoughts were spinning.

Connor, Connor, always about Connor. Gavin wanted to know what was running through his soulmate’s head at this very moment. He wanted to know what he was thinking as he murdered the hope of his people. Wanted to know if and how it was related to the reason he turned his gun on himself.

He desperately wanted to know, but was utterly terrified to learn at the same time.

Because if Connor was deviant, then there was always the possibility that he discovered his soulmark.

He didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a fabulous weekend! If your here, you must be in it for the Gavin angst. I’ll be throwing our boy some bones soon I swear. But, hey, we’re almost caught up to the start of chapter 1!


	6. Chapter 6

**LOOP** **#200**

**November 6, 2038**

 

After his breakfast with Tina, Gavin got into his car and realized that he was sick and tired of the cold.

Hell, he had forgotten what warm weather even _felt_ like. After all, he’s spent forever in the plummeting chill of Detroit’s late fall, so he guess it made sense that he had kinda forgotten that there were other seasons.

He had forgotten about the new growth of Spring, and the sweltering heat of summer. He forgot that the sun could do more than just illuminate the world.

At a red light he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, debating with himself.

When the light turned green he made a U-turn instead of the left that would have taken him to the precinct.

He kept driving until he reached the Metro Airport and then emptied a third of his bank account on a plane ticket to the west coast. It was a first class ticket, which Gavin wouldn’t normally bother with, but it was the last seat available if he wanted to leave today. He didn’t hesitate to hand over his card to the android working the desk.

As soon as he landed in San Francisco International Airport he shot Tina a text asking her to take care of Briggs for a couple of days. He shut off his phone before she could reply and chucked it into the first trash can he saw.

He wouldn’t need it for the rest of this loop, anyway.

 

**LOOP #200**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin sat on some no-name beach somewhere along the California coast and let the sun warm his skin for the first time in forever. The fog had burned off hours ago, the gentle heat of the sun had him peeling off his jacket, exposing his arms to the open air.

It felt good.

It would have felt better if something hadn’t been missing.

He traced the empty skin of his left arm and daydreamed about what it could be like if he could just find a way out of this life on repeat. If he wasn’t cursed.

Did Connor even like the beach? Did he like the feeling of sand between his toes, and the steady sound of waves crashing against the shore? Would he enjoy watching the gulls fly overhead as they dove and swooped over the water?

Gavin would take him some day just to find out.

He would take him right _here,_ back to this beach, and they would find out together. The next time he came here would really be the first time, hopefully just one of many firsts they could experience together.

Hopefully.

Once Gavin broke free or this never ending cycle. Once he saved Connor, then they could actually live.

One day.

Gavin needed this reminder of why he kept trying.

He needed the reminder that the world was so much bigger than Detroit. There were so many different places that Gavin had never been, things he had never seen. Natural wonders, tourist traps. So many places he never thought to visit.

But now he wanted to.

He just wanted Connor with him when he did, wanted to see Connor experience the good things that the world had to offer.

If he ever got the chance.

 _One day,_ he promised himself.

_One day._

   

**LOOP #215**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin was running out of points to poke at.

He could never get close to Connor once he left the precinct to go track down where Markus and his group were hiding. He couldn’t square off against RK800 (he refused to call that bastard _Connor_ ) without dying or being hospitalized for the remainder of the loop. He had already explored all the cases assigned to Hank and Connor, and the only true thing of value he had learned was that deviants were capable of having soulmarks. That, and that when it comes to survival, deviants could be every bit as vicious as humans, especially when cornered.

There was only one spot left for him to try.

And he really, _really_ didn’t want to go.

Up until now Gavin had made it a point to stay away from the Jericho raid. He knew exactly how trigger happy the FBI became, and the last thing he wanted was to be associated with that level of genocide. Or _any_ genocide, really.

But it was the last bit of unexplored territory he had left.

The last place he knew Connor was at before appearing at CyberLife tower.  That was where he went after breaking into the evidence locker.

Connor would be there.

So Gavin went.

This time he stayed at a distance, tracking the steps of the FBI as they moved into position. It wasn’t much, but it would help him find an open path in to find Connor later, so he remained still at his perch and watched the raid go down.

It was every bit as chaotic as he expected it to be.

And far more horrific.       

 

**LOOP #230**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin had no idea how hard it would actually be. Not just get in, but to _be there_ , right in the thick of it, with the screams and the gunfire.

But he was learning.

 

**LOOP #241**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin finally managed to successfully sneak into Jericho.

It had taken so long to figure out how to slip in unnoticed, but he had it memorized now.

Now, _finally_ , he was on the ship proper, actually looking for Connor. He didn’t even recognize him at first, dressed as he was, but Gavin eventually found him. He found him standing off against the FBI while standing guard in front of a handful of others, androids, all of them.

The deviant hunter protecting deviants.

Huh.

Gavin didn’t think twice about shooting two armored agents in the back. He was at a bad angle to see the third, but he realized his mistake when fire bloomed in his chest.

He looked down at the hole in his shirt, red seeping into the fabric and quickly spreading.

“Fuck.”

Gavin didn’t realized his knees had buckled until they hit the floor, jagged metal biting his skin even through the heavy denim of his jeans.

One more gunshot.

He didn’t think he was hit this time, but either way he was having trouble breathing.

“Detective Reed?!” Connor’s voice shouted, fear and confusion choking it.

That was knew.

It had been a while since he’d learned something new about Connor.

This is the first time he had ever heard Connor sound like that. So charged with emotion.

Hands were now on his chest and back, applying steady pressure from both sides.

Oh.

He hadn’t realized it had been a through and through.

He could now add that to his list of shitty ways to die.

The fact that Connor was holding him was nice, though.

But the fact that he was crying wasn’t.

“Don’ do that,” Gavin begged him quietly, “don’ you cry for me. Not me.” Not after all the times Gavin has failed him, failed them both. All the times he _will_ fail them in the many loops to come. He huffed a laugh, painful, hysterical, knowing he was close to tears for a whole different reason. He focused on Connor’s eyes and smiled. “You deviant?”

Connor nods and offers a shaky, “Yes.”

“Good, tha’s good.” He slumped against Connor’s shoulder, no longer having the strength to hold himself up any longer. Feeling guilty, but unable to help himself, he tucked his face shamefully into Connor’s neck. He bit his own lip to keep himself from saying anything else.

He wanted to ask, wanted to ask Connor to show him his bare skin, his real one, not the one he wears to make humans feel comfortable. Wanted to see what color his name would be written in.

But he couldn’t do that to Connor.

He knew what it was like to watch your soulmark turn grey, and he refused to bring Connor’s attention to it any sooner than necessary. Especially not now. Better for it to already be grayed out than to watch it turn. He wished that for Connor, to remain blissfully ignorant for as long as possible.

He could give him this.

He could give him this because apparently he was incapable of giving him anything else.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Some chick was trying to pull Connor away, but he kept shrugging her off.

The fire in his chest had turned to ice, and his breaths were now coming short and shallow against Connor’s neck. Not long now, he knew.

Connor didn’t need to see this.

“Go,” he whispered.

Connor shook his head.

“ _Go_.”

Connor clutched him tighter even as hands were pulling him away, urging him to hurry, to leave the dying human and run. They finally succeeded as Gavin’s world began bleed and fade out around him.

The last thing he saw was those devastated brown eyes, tears still falling in a steady stream down his pale face.

His heart twisted.

God, Connor thought he was worth crying over. Him, as is, all fucked up, was worth crying over. The thought should make him happy, it would have, in a different scenario. But not now.

Now he hoped Connor never found the soulmark.

That was his final thought as he faded into the black.

 

**LOOP #254**

 

Eventually Gavin learned to stay away from Jericho.

 

**LOOP #255**

**November 9, 2038**

 

 Gavin couldn’t do this anymore.

Knowing exactly how close Connor was to becoming deviant was a special kind of torture. Now he couldn’t help but think if Connor only knew that he had an ally in Gavin, then maybe he would turn early. If he _knew,_ then maybe he’d let Gavin help him survive the revolution. Maybe he could keep him from pulling the trigger.

Until now, Gavin had hid his own soulmark jealously, possessively, keeping it for his eyes and no one else’s.

But maybe that needed to change.

Maybe if Connor _knew_ then they could get out of this. Together. Maybe if he showed Connor the reason for his change of heart, then he would forgive him.

Maybe.

So when Gavin caught up to Connor outside the evidence locker he pulled him inside and showed him his soulmark.

The last thing Gavin expected was to end up staring down the barrel of his own gun.  

Connor stared back at him, eyes flinty and cold.

He pulled the trigger.

 

**LOOP #256**

**November 6, 2038**

 

Gavin woke to a swat to the face.

He abruptly launched upright, startling Briggs so badly that he bolted out the door. Gavin’s stomach roiled, sending him on a mad dash to the bathroom to purge the contents of his stomach.

Oh god, but those eyes.

Gavin Gavin had never seen them that empty, so devoid of any warmth. It was like a switch had been flipped and someone else was staring back at him.

It was wrong.

It was _wrong_ and the very memory of it twisted up his insides.

“That wasn’t Connor,” he gasped between dry heaves, pressing his forehead firmly against the wall. If he pressed hard enough then maybe he could erase the memory of such cold indifference. “I don’t know who the fuck that was, but it wasn’t Connor.”

 

**LOOP #257**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Gavin managed to fend him off long enough to plead. “Connor, you need to snap outta it! Whatever the fuck it is, fight it! Please!”

Because this wasn’t Connor. Gavin knew how Connor moved, knew his speech patterns. Whoever, _whatever_ was in control didn’t move like Connor, and when they finally spoke they sure as shit didn’t sound like Connor either.

“Gavin Reed,” Not-Connor mused, almost sounding disappointed. “We should have factored you in as a wild card. After all, your brother was a problem too.”

Shock had Gavin lowering his guard.

Not-Connor took advantage, breaking his hold to go for Gavin’s gun.

And fired.

 

**LOOP #258**

**November 6, 2038**

 

_“Your brother was a problem too.”_

Of course.

 _Fuck_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! And as of now, we are officially caught up the the very beginning of this fic! And then some! More of Gavin’s history heading your way!
> 
> Edit: Yikes! I didn’t realize I had so many typos! If you guys see something that may not belong, feel free to say something, I don’t always hand this off for proof reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**LOOP #258**

**November 6, 2038**

 

“ _Your brother was a problem too.”_

It kept rattling through his mind, echoing again and again, and refusing to fade away.

After all, Gavin now knew with absolute certainty that he was dealing directly with CyberLife.  He had to be, between the RK800 that nabs Hank, to whoever the fuck body snatches Connor. No one else had that kind of reach. But his brother hadn’t been involved with the company for years, so he never thought about a connection.

He should have known better.

_“Your brother was a problem too.”_

God, Gavin hadn’t even _seen_ his brother in person since-

He paused, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of his nose as a swarm of memories threatened to overwhelm him.

Well, _since_.

  
  


**LOOP #1**

**October 7, 2015**

 

Gavin hated Mondays. School always took forever, and even when the last bell rang for the day, the rest of the week loomed in the background. Mondays were the worst.

And this Monday was no exception.

In fact, today was made even _worse_ by the fact that it was his birthday.

Especially since his mom got called into work last minute, so she wouldn’t be home until later tonight. She had promised Gavin that they could get pizza and ice cream from his favorite spots across town, but he knew she’d be too tired when she got home.

 _I’ll make it up to you,_ she’d say.

He tried not to be mad about it.

After all, he knew why his mom worked so hard. The house they were renting now was so much better than the tiny apartment they used to live in. Better and more expensive. He knew she was looking for a new job. He had seen half filled applications on tags she forgot to close on their desktop, and copies of her resume beside the printer. But until then, she’s been taking on as many extra hours as she could to make up the difference.

As a result, it wasn’t unusual for him to come home to an empty house these days.

Most times the silence became too much, forcing Gavin to break it with music or a show, something to put in the background so he could pretend he wasn’t alone while he finished his homework.

Gavin had resigned himself to that same fate for tonight.

That would have happened if a stranger hadn’t been waiting for him on the front porch.

Gavin froze on the path and stared.

It was a boy his age. Nothing really special about him, really. They very well could have gone to the same school, but Gavin didn’t recognize him. Messy ponytail, glasses, and face buried in a stupidly expensive phone. This kid had _nerd_ written all over him, and Gavin wondered what the hell he was doing here.

“You lost?” He asked.

The kid’s head popped up and his whole face brightened. “Are you Gavin Reed?”

Gavin blinked. “Last I checked,” he responded carefully.

The phone was immediately tucked away into a pocket, and the stranger sprang to his feet with a grin. “Hi! My name is Elijah. I’m so glad to finally meet you!”

“Okay,” Gavin said. “Um, am I supposed to know who you are, cause I don’t have a clue.”

“Oh.” The kid’s face visibly fell, but he rebounded quickly. “May I come in?

  


Elijah was a strange guy.

He seemed utterly fascinated by the most random things in the house, from the orchids his mom had scattered everywhere to the line of photos on the mantel.

“Is this your mother?”

Gavin looked up from where he was setting up his Wii U. He recognized the frame Elijah was holding from across the room. Of course it had to be _that_ one.

“Yeah,” he said simply.

“When was it taken?”

Gavin thought it was a little weird that he was so interested, but the guy seemed genuinely curious so he answered. “My birthday last year.” He deliberately left out that the picture was taken one year ago _today_. “She took me outta school for the week so we could go camping. We had s’mores for breakfast.”

“Sounds pleasant,” he put the photo back with a wistful smile. “I’ve never had the opportunity.”

“For what? Camping, or eating s’mores?”

“Both.”

Gavin’s brain screeched to a halt. “Never? Not _once_?”

It just didn’t compute.

Elijah shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “My parents don’t believe that frivolous activities are conductive to my education.”

“Your parents sound like the Fun Police,” Gavin told him. _Frivolous activities._ What the heck did _that_ include? Elijah had said it with the air of someone quoting something they’d hear a million times.

Gavin looked down at the controllers in his hands, and was suddenly horrified when a thought struck him. He launched to his feet to drag Elijah over to the couch and shove a controller into his hands.

“What are you doing?” Elijah seemed equal parts amused and curious.

“Educating you,” Gavin deadpanned, then proceeded to introduce him to Super Smash Bros, and then later Mario Kart.

Which is how his mom came home to two thirteen-year-olds shouting at each other just as they finished a race.

“NO! You cheating bastard, that was mine!” Gavin tried elbowing him to sabotage his gameplay, only to be met with retaliation.

“How is that cheating? First you teach me how to play, and then you don’t want me to use what you taught me. How is that fair?”

Another shell crashed Gavin’s character, knocking him off course and allowing Elijah to steal first place at the last second.

The bastard looked so smug when he turned to Gavin and said, “You should be proud that you taught me so well!”

“Oh _yeah-_ ”

Gavin had just put his guest in a headlock when the door slammed shut, making them both freeze.

“What happened to texting me if you have friends over?”

There was his mom, hair in slight disarray as she juggled her purse, a plastic bag and two boxes of pizza.

“Sorry mom, I lost track of time.”

She shrugged. ”Well, at least there’s enough food for everyone. Who’s your friend Gavin?”

He got up to relieve his mom of the pizza boxes. He tilted his head at Elijah who had followed him like a duckling. “Mom, this is Elijah.”

Elijah smiled and offered his hand. “It’s nice to meet you Miss Reed.”

She shook his hand. “Call me Sarah, please. Are you staying for dinner?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Do your parents know your here?”

Elijah gave another polite smile. “I sent my mother a message.”

“Any allergies I should know about?”

“No.”

“Great! Now that the responsible adult stuff is outta the way, let me go put the ice cream away and get some paper plates and some soda for everyone. Turn a controller on for me, would you Gavin? And set me up with Rosalina!”

Gavin groaned as his mom disappeared into the kitchen. “Mom, you’re not allowed to use Rosalina. Elijah’s a newbie!”

“But she’s my favorite character!”

“ _No_.”

Elijah had this expression like he wasn’t sure if he should be amused or concerned. “What’s wrong with her using Rosalina?” He asked.

“She’s so _stupidly_ good with her it’s broken! If I allow it then the only thing we’ll get is brutal destruction.” He points an accusing finger at her as she strolls back in. “It’s my birthday and I say _no_.”

There was a dramatic sigh. “Fine.”

Elijah was picked up an hour later by a woman wearing a pantsuit and a severe expression. That expression only got worse when her eyes landed on Gavin’s mom as she opened the door. “Sarah,” she greeted coldly, arms crossing over her chest.

“Maddie,” he mom replied, almost as cold.

Gavin looked between the two women and then to Elijah. Gavin didn’t know what was going on, but Elijah seemed to have a clue if his sheepish smile was anything to go by.

“Thanks for inviting me in,” he whispered as he passed, making his way to the door. He turned to Gavin’s mom to offer her his hand once more, posture stiff and painfully polite. “Thank you for dinner Miss Reed.”

That seemed to snap his mom out of it. Her expression softened. “You’re welcome over any time, Elijah. Our door is open.”

Maddie scowled and grabbed Elijah, dragging him away.

Gavin found two envelopes not twenty minutes later.

One was for his mom. It was an apology letter, he later found out, apologizing for showing up unannounced and for the problems it might cause later.

The other was a for Gavin. It was a card with a silly-looking snub nosed dog on the front. The interior was blank except for a simple note in neat blue ink.

 

_Happy Birthday Brother._

_-Elijah Kamski_

 

And that was how Gavin learned he had a half brother.

  
  


**LOOP #259**

**November 9, 2038**

 

The man was surprisingly hard to find. After he officially stepped down as CEO it was like Elijah just dropped off the face of the planet. The most Gavin found was “where are they now?” articles scattered throughout the internet. It was pure speculation, all of it, as the man hadn’t made a public appearance in almost a decade.

Gavin had to use his work in a less than ethical manner to get a current address. He commits it to memory and lets an entire loop go by to erase the evidence. If he ever did manage to break free, he’d like to actually keep his job at the end of all of this.

Imagine his surprise that it was only a half hour drive out of town.

Even with his tracks covered, and only a short drive ahead of him, Gavin debated with himself for _days_ before working up the nerve to actually get in the damn car.

   

 

**LOOP #1**

**December 24, 2018**

 

“We haven’t seen much of you lately, Eli.”

“I know.” Elijah rubbed his nose and pushed up his glasses with the back of his knuckles. The two of them were assigned to peeling potatoes since neither one could be trusted to prep the cookie dough without constantly taking samples. “I’ve just been busy.”

Ever since he stepped into their lives, Elijah had been a constant staple in the Reed household, much to Maddie’s irritation.

At first, she had tried to keep her son away from Gavin and all he represented. As if hiding his existence would erase the fact that her late husband had been a cheating bastard. But if Gavin and Elijah had anything in common, it was that they could both be as stubborn as a mule. Elijah refused to be kept away, and whenever he showed up, even at odd hours, he was always met with an open door.

But his visits had been so scarce lately that Gavin had doubted that he would show up for Christmas, despite his mother’s constant assurance that he would.

 _“Eli was brought up in a different world, Gavin,”_ his mother often told him. _“Just because he’s not always here doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. He does. Have a little faith in him, okay?”_

But the pep talks didn’t stop him from missing his brother, and it didn’t stop him from feeling resentment at whatever was keeping him away.

    “Busy with what? School?” Gavin wasn’t stupid, but he knew that his brother was insanely smart. A genius even. After all, Eli had been in his first year of college when they had met. He didn’t talk about it much, and Gavin tried not to pry since it had a tendency to make Eli clam up for the rest of his visit.

But he thought a yes or no question was safe enough.

Much to his surprise, Elijah huffed with a smile and delivered a real answer. “Work, actually.”

“Work?” Gavin was floored. “Eli, you’re only 16! What the hell you working for?”

“It started as a pet project really, then it got a bit out of hand.” He just kept on smiling as he reached for another potato. “I’ll have to show you sometime. I think it could turn into something quite spectacular.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I really think so.”

  


**LOOP #259**

**November 9, 2038**

 

Bitter memories and swirling emotions created a raging storm within him as he drove through fresh snow on the long and winding driveway leading up to Elijah’s house. Gavin had spent so long in his current dilemma that he forgot how raw those old wounds still were.

He was going to talk to his brother.

And he had no idea what he was gonna say when he actually got there.

       

 

**LOOP #1**

**May 17, 2020**

 

Gavin was in half a mind to slam the door as soon as he opened it. “You have a lot of nerve showing up here.”

“Can you just let me explain?”

“Explain _what_ Eli? That you were too busy playing with your little toys to spend time with your own fucking family?”

Gavin saw Elijah’s blue eyes sweep over him, taking in every bruise, every bandage, just like he saw him constantly tug at his shirt cuff.  “Please let me inside so we can talk?”

Fueled by hurt and anger, Gavin’s temper boiled over.

Gavin shoved Elijah in the chest hard enough to force him to take a step back. Gavin stepped outside, crowding into his brother’s space and jabbing a finger into his chest. “Oh, now you wanna talk? Where were you last week, huh? Where were you when I had to do the paperwork _by myself_ because you were too fucking busy to bother showing up?”

Elijah was begging now. “I did what I could,” He insisted. “I called to pay for-”

Gavin shoved him again, harder, making him stagger. “I didn’t need any of your goddamn money!” He roared. “You fuckin’ _get_ that? I didn’t need money, I needed _you_!”

Elijah looked crushed, tugging even harder on his sleeve, but Gavin was too caught up in his own pain to care. “She wasn’t your mom, but she fucking treated you like her son! And this is the thanks she gets, you ditching the first chance you get? You spineless sonova-”

Gavin never saw the punch coming. It connected squarely to his cheekbone, tugging at his stitches and making his whole face throb.

The whole world seemed to stop, just for one second.

Elijah was crying now, fists and teeth clenched and his whole body trembling.

Gavin brushed a thumb across his lip and looked at the blood now coating it. He sniffed once before hauling back and delivering a punch of his own.

Elijah attempted to call a few times after that, but those conversations all ended in disaster, further driving the wedge between them. After that, there were dozens of unopened texts and a handful of deleted emails.

There had been nothing but radio silence ever since.

  


**LOOP #259**

**November 9, 2038**

 

“What the fuck.”

Hank’s car was here.

_Why the fuck was Hank’s car here?_

Gavin stood out in the snow, staring like an idiot, with his car door still in hand. He debated hopping back into the driver’s seat and leaving this little meet and greet until his next go round.

The chance to run disappeared as the door opened and two familiar figures poured out. Neither one seemed to notice him and he was content to keep it that way.

Until Connor whirled on Hank and raised his voice.

“Yeah, I know what I should have done! I told you I couldn’t! I’m sorry, okay?”

Of course he couldn’t keep his mouth shut after that.

“Everything all right?” He called out.

Both men startled, noticing him for the first time.

“What the hell are you doing here, Reed?” Hank bellowed out.

“Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he drawled. He finally slammed his door shut, leaving it unlocked. Not like there was anyone out here who was gonna steal it.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and met them halfway.

Connor quickly straightened his coat and tie, before turning towards Hank. “I’ll go wait in the car, Lieutenant.”

Gavin gently caught his sleeve as he tried to walk past, and didn’t miss Connor’s LED flashing yellow for a fraction of a second. Gavin lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear. “Hey. You okay?”

“Of course, Detective,” Connor said. His expression remained painfully neutral, but his LED flashed yellow once more before returning to a steady blue. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Connor pulled free of his grasp and Gavin watched him go, in half a mind to follow him.

That was, until a large hand grabbed him, spinning him around to meet a scowling Hank Anderson.

“Seriously, Reed, what the fuck are you doing here?” Hank hissed, right up in his face. Papa Bear was out in full force and Gavin wondered what kinda bullshit went down to trigger it.

Long practice had Gavin just rolling with Hank’s temper instead of fighting fire with fire. “Same thing as you, I’d wager. Just following a lead.”

It was true, after all.

“Right,” Hank huffed, saturated with sarcasm.  But he released Gavin all the same, his eyes drifting past Gavin to where Connor had disappeared.

 _Worried_.

“So, what the hell happened in there?”

Elijah pulled something. He just knew it.

Hank’s eyebrows shot up into his hair, his attention whipping back to Gavin.

Gavin scowled eyes darting everywhere but the Lieutenant to avoid the man’s intense stare. “After that little outburst, I just wanna know what I’m up against, okay? Don’t make it weird, old man. This week’s been crappy enough without dealing with ultra rich assholes.”

Crappy week.

God, what an understatement.

Hank scrutinized him for a long moment. The man had a good nose for bullshit, which is why Gavin was using as much truth as possible when dealing with the man. As much truth as possible, and as vague as he could get away with. It was a tactic Gavin began to employ when he began forgetting what conversations he had when, which began to cause all sorts of problems.

But Gavin honestly, genuinely, wanted to know. He wanted to know what Elijah said, what his mannerisms were like.

Wanted to know if Elijah had changed at all.

Eventually, Hank eventually sighed. “The bastard likes mind games. Threw Connor for a loop, let me tell ya. And we didn’t actually learn anything.”

“What did he do? Wow him with words of wisdom?”

He’d spent over the last decade convinced that he had been nothing but a social experiment to Elijah. That the Elijah that he and his mom had welcomed into their home had been nothing but a fabrication, a lie to trick Gavin into giving a damn. He had spent most of his life since then stewing in a lake of hurt and bitter hatred, not just for Elijah, but for everything associated with him.

Then Connor came into his life.

Now, Gavin didn’t know what to think.

Ha had been wrong about Connor, and androids in general.

Was he wrong about Elijah too?

_Your brother was a problem too._

Hank’s face twisted like he ate something bitter as he searched for a response. “Oh, he spouted a lot of bullshit, to be sure. Fucker wanted Connor to put a bullet of one of his own androids in exchange for information.”

Shit, shit, shit. No wonder Connor was so upset, especially when he was only half a day away from deviating himself.

“He didn’t do it, did he?” He didn’t mean to say it like that. With a hint of worry and more than a little knowing.

Hank was giving him another look, telling Gavin that his tone didn’t escape notice. “No,” he said at last. “No, he didn’t.” The man feet shuffled for a moment. “Listen, Reed-”

“Can it,” Gavin interrupted. “No one’s gonna hear it from me. But it’s gonna cost ya.”

Anderson was full on suspicious now. “And what’s that?”

“Tell me _everything_ that Kamski said.”

He did, and then promptly left with Connor in tow.

Gavin watched them drive away as he slowly slipped into a blind rage. The anger settled in like an old familiar friend, making him forget that there might be more at work here than he realized.

Right now, none of that mattered.

Gavin spent the next two and a half hours banging on Elijah’s front door, fully intending to show him just what he thought about his sadistic version of an empathy test.

It never opened.

  
  


**LOOP #262**

**November 2038**

 

It took three tries to successfully gain access to the house.

  


**LOOP #270**

**November 2038**

 

And another eight before he didn’t get thrown out within the first five minutes.   

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not the original ending point for this chapter, but as it was looking to add at LEAST another thousand words I thought it would be good to break it up. 
> 
> THIS CHAPTER! This damn thing decided to ignore my original plan and practically wrote itself. And honestly I like this a lot better! 
> 
> I’m LOVING all the thoughts and theories you guys have been leaving in the comments, so please keep them coming! 
> 
> Also, a kind soul pointed out a couple of typos and I was super appreciative. Never feel bad about pointing out errors. I don’t have a beta check my work, and sometimes I write less than sober. 
> 
> Wanna chat or ask questions? Visit me on Tumblr!  
> Sharysisnhmoonshadow 
> 
> Til next time!


	8. Chapter 8

**LOOP #271**

**November 6, 2038**

 

This time Gavin made it to the eight minute mark before he was once more escorted out by the most emotionless android he had ever met.

Oh, she’d smile pleasantly enough, even while wrangling his unruly ass outside, but her eyes were completely dead.

It was fucking creepy.

Gavin remembered seeing the prototype for this model on the news, back when Elijah’s shining new company was really starting to make waves. As much as he’d try to avoid it, it was all anyone could yap about, especially after an interview with the damn thing was made available to the public. Even she, the very first of her kind, had more fire in her eyes than this one had.

Gavin had seen her in person just once, back when Gavin did his first and last visit to Elijah’s workshop. Elijah had been so damn proud to show off his work, showing Gavin the machine he’d put so much time and effort building. She hadn’t been much to look at then, little more than a hollowed out mannequin crafted from alloy and plastic. Gavin remembered Elijah showing him a digital rendering of how she was going to look upon completion.

He had no clue that this android would later change the world.

Chloe, Elijah had called her, even before her activation.

Gavin wondered what happened to her. Wondered if Elijah had her tucked away somewhere, or if he had discarded her when the next model came down the production line.

But if that’s what Elijah did, then why bother keeping this diluted version of the original?

It didn’t make sense.

And even now, Gavin couldn’t shake the words rattling around his skull.

_“Your brother was a problem too.”_

The door slammed shut behind him.

Gavin sighed. He needed to take a different approach.

Clearly this one wasn’t working.

  


**LOOP #272**

**November 7, 2038**

 

Gavin stood outside for a few minutes, trying to work up the nerve to actually go up and knock on the damn door.

“Fuck, fuck, c’mon, just press the stupid button.”

Although he was dead tired, his mind and body both felt jittery from the three cups of coffee he had before heading out. Thoughts scattered, he ran both hands through his hair and blew out a slow, steadying breath.

He pressed the doorbell before he could second guess himself.

As he expected, the blond android opened the door, staring at him expectantly.

“Um. Hi,” he said awkwardly. “I know it’s early, but I need to speak to Elijah. Please.”

There was a beat of silence before she was stepping back to invite Gavin in with a wave and that perfect customer service smile. “Please, come in!” She closed the door against the cold as soon as Gavin was safely inside. “I’ll see if Elijah is willing to see visitors. Who should I say is paying a visit?”

“His-” Gavin stopped himself, still unsure of where he and Elijah actually stood. “Um. Gavin. Just . . . just tell him I’d like to talk.”

“If my memory serves, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you had no interest in hearing anything I had to say.”

And there was his brother, leaning against an open doorframe in pajama pants and a loose long sleeved shirt. His arms were crossed, and his blue eyes sharp as daggers, even from across the room. His expression was as cold and distant as his tone.

This time Gavin refused to let his temper flare at the show of indifference.

Because what if that was all it was? A show?

There were too many pieces missing, too many things at work that he didn’t know the mechanics of.

_“Your brother was a problem too.”_

    Gavin’s instincts were suddenly screaming at him, and dread began to pool hot and heavy in his stomach. Normally, Gavin would respond with anger, spitting out words he knew would cut the deepest. But not now. Now, all he could think about was all the things he _didn’t_ know. About Elijah and about CyberLife.

How different would his life be right now if he had just stopped long enough to fucking _listen_?

“Yeah, well, things change, okay? I’m here aren’t I?”

“Yes, but are you here as yourself, or as Detective Reed of the DPD? Because I doubt anything short of a direct order would bring you to my door.” Elijah pushed himself away from the doorframe. He moved across the room with the air of someone bored with the situation. It was a calculated move, guaranteed to goad a reaction out of Gavin.

But not today.

“I’m here because I have a bone to pick with CyberLife, and I honestly believe you’re the only one who can help me.”

Truth, truth, stick to the truth.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, _brother_ , but I stepped away from my company years ago. So any issues you currently have, you can take it to CyberLife’s main office. I believe they should open within the hour. Now, if that was all,” Elijah made a quick _shooing_ gesture with one hand. “You may leave now.”

Gavin felt a pang in his chest, suddenly worried that this would be another thing he could never fix. Like pulling that gun on Connor, waiting so long to bridge the gap between him and Elijah would be something he could never take back.

But he needed to _try_. He couldn’t do this alone, and if Elijah couldn’t help him, then what other hope did he have? What hope did Connor have?

Trust lay so shattered between them, that in order to rebuild even a fraction of it, Gavin would need to show some first. He needed to give some serious ground if he had a hope in Hell of getting through to Elijah.

And he’d give _everything_ if it would help him save Connor in the end.

Gavin sighed, and bit his lip, and then slowly took the last two steps separating him and his brother. When he finally wrestled the words from his throat, his voice was low, and probably not as steady as he wanted it to be. “I know I’ve fucked up, alright? More than you could possibly imagine. I get why you wouldn’t want to help me. Fine, I understand, okay? I get it.” He pushed up his left sleeve, and before he thought better of it, lifted his arm for Elijah to see. “But help _him_.”

Elijah’s bright eyes flicked down, and then all the color drained from his face. His arms slowly fell from their crossed position, and suddenly two lightly callused hands were holding Gavin’s arm. Those bright blue eyes were locked on the soulmark, completely transfixed as he examined it.

“Deviant?” Elijah asked. It was barely a whisper.

Gavin swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Not yet.”

And just like that, Elijah stiffened and his eyes met Gavin’s. It was like he suddenly realized everything Gavin had just said. “Not yet?” He echoed.

Gavin just shook his head once, slowly.

Elijah pulled away abruptly and turned to the blonde android who was still standing quietly to the side. “Chloe, please go wake the others for me. Our guest and I are going to sit and have a drink. This conversation is going to need it, I think.”

“Of course, Elijah.” With a nod and that ever pleasant expression, the blond android turned and disappeared further into the house.

And because Gavin couldn’t fucking contain himself, as soon as she was out of sight, he glared at Elijah allowing a bit of fire to color his voice. “So, do you just call all your androids Chloe, or just the ones that share the same face?”

Elijah’s jaw flexed and Gavin knew he struck a nerve.  The man tugged at his sleeve hard as if he was attempting to straighten it. When he finally answered, his voice was a little too flat for Gavin’s liking. “Don’t be absurd. There has only ever been _one_ Chloe.”

With that, he turned away as well, forcing Gavin to follow him. The kitchen he was led to was as sparse and modern as the rest of the damn place. Elijah retrieved two glasses and a fancy-looking bottle. He poured a generous portion of amber liquid into each glass, and Gavin blinked in surprise as one was set in front of him.

Gavin took the glass and gave it’s contents a curious sniff. Bourbon. “A little early for hard liquor, dontcha think?”

“Clearly not, seeing as you accepted it,” Elijah said pointedly, gesturing with his own glass as he pulled up a chair beside Gavin and made himself comfortable.

Gavin stared down at the glass, and huffed out a soft “fair enough” before taking a sip.

As the brandy burned a path down his throat, he realized this was the first time he’s ever had a drink with his brother.

He snorted out a little laugh, rolling the glass between his palms.

“What’s so funny?”

Gavin lifted his glass to Elijah and gave a wry grin. “To the first and last drink we’ll share.”

“You seem so certain.”

Gavin downed the whole glass, ignoring the raised eyebrow shot in his direction. He coughed and set the empty glass down, nudging it away from him.

“Yep,” he said with a decisive nod. “Cause I’m absolutely _certain_ you’re gonna think I’m certifiably insane.”

Elijah hummed, poured another two fingers worth without being asked. “Well, you came here to talk. So talk.”

_Stop beating around the bush, Gavin._

Right.

Gavin toyed with his glass, but didn’t drink any more. “There’s so much ground to cover. I don't know where to begin.”

Elijah points at Gavin’s arm, where his sleeve was once more hiding his Soulmark. “Begin with him. Apparently he made an android advocate out of you, and frankly I’m not sure how much I believe it.”

Gavin laughed self deprecatingly. “Oh, you should have seen me when I first found out. Pissed doesn’t even _begin_ to cover it.”

“So what changed?”

Two gunshots and a faded soulmark.

But Gavin couldn’t say that.

“Time,” he said instead, softly. It was an honest answer. He sat there and looked back and where he started at the beginning of all this and didn’t even recognize himself. “Lots of time.”

Elijah let out an annoyed sigh. “Cryptic doesn’t suit you, brother. And if you’re going to lie to me, and least put some effort into it. I know very well that most of the places you frequent are very vehemently anti-android. As recently as a week ago, I believe.” He took a sip from his own glass. “And then there’s the fact that your RK800 has been assigned to your precinct for all of three days. That’s not nearly as much time as you would have me believe. Try again.”

Shame at his previous hangouts was washed away under that implication, and Gavin bristled. Elijah had been watching him? For how long?

“What, you have me under surveillance? And what happened to it not being your company anymore, huh?”

“When you find yourself surrounded by enemies, It’s prudent to keep careful watch, wouldn’t you agree?”

Fury flared to life, bright and hot in his chest, and he opened his mouth to lash out, but the words never left his tongue.

What would make someone paranoid enough to do that? To keep all your connections under constant scrutiny?

_Your brother was a problem too._

Nothing good, that’s what. There was still so much he didn’t know.

Gavin eyed Elijah, trying to get a read on him. His brother returned the stare, waiting for a response.

Gavin traced the 51 at the end of Connor’s serial number, as he scrambled for something to say. “I’m not your enemy, Eli.”

Elijah just settled deeper into his chair. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

 _All cards on the table,_ Gavin told himself. _What have I got to lose?_

“Tomorrow a team of androids are gonna break into Stratford Tower. Their leader, Markus, is going to announce to the world that their people are alive. The day after that, the FBI figure out where their base is located, and act on it. Connor will deviate during the raid and disappear with the other survivors. Two days after that, Connor emerges from CyberLife with an army of deviants at his back and then, then he-” Gavin’s voice finally choked and cracked, and he desperately tried to ignore the burn behind his eyes. “He shoots himself while the whole world just fucking watches! I know I sound crazy, okay? I sound like I went right off the fucking deep end. But I’ve been stuck on repeat for so long and I’m out of ideas. I need your help Eli, _please_.”

“What was it, precisely, that brought you to me?”

That . . . wasn’t the response he was expecting.

He expected to get kicked out, _again,_ or called a liar, but no. Elijah had asked him a question, and based on his expression, he was actually expecting an answer.

Gavin was floored. “You . . . you believe me?”

“Gavin,” Elijah warned. “Answer the question.”

_What was it, precisely, that brought you to me?_

“I, um.” Gavin pressed his thumb hard against the last digit of his mark. He licked his lips, and began again. “I tried to get him to deviate early.  Just by a few hours. Showed him my mark, thinking that if he just _knew_ , then maybe I could finally change it. _We_ could change it. But he-” Gavin’s voice broke again, as he remembered those ice cold eyes staring down at him. He turned to look at his brother. “Is there a way for an android’s body to be, I dunno, remotely hijacked, or something?”

Elijah tilted his head. “If it were that easy, then CyberLife would have lost customer confidence years ago. An android is capable of detecting when their firewalls are under attack. Far more likely that an override was installed prior to activation. Why?”

“Because it was like someone flipped a switch and then there was somebody else behind the wheel. I _know_ Connor, and that, that wasn’t him. But, whoever they were, the bastard said something and I haven’t been able to shake it.” He took a steadying breath. “That’s why I’m here, on the off chance that I wasn’t the only one CyberLife screwed over.”

“Word for word, Gavin. What. Did. They. _Say._ ” Elijah straightened, and leaned a bit into his space, his whole body tense as if he was waiting for something specific.

Gavin met his gaze, feeling that he was being tested somehow and his gut told him that if he gave anything else than the absolute truth, then he would ruin his chances this time around and would have to start all over again the next one. So Gavin did the only thing he could do.

He dutifully parroted the words that were seared into his mind.

“We should have factored you in as a wild card. After all, your brother was a problem too.”

“And they just . . . let you go?” And _there_ was the suspicion and skepticism he had expected. Better late than never.

“ _Fuck_ no.” Gavin laughed but it was a bitter, ugly sound. “Asshole took my sidearm.” He mimed putting a gun to his own temple. “Took a bullet to the head. Instant restart.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Because I’m fucking talking about android uprisings and knowing the fucking future, and I have no goddamn clue where your head’s at.”

He knew he sounded nearly hysterical by this point, but here he was spilling his guts, and Elijah was giving him absolutely nothing back.

“I’m thinking that there is a slim chance you just might be telling the truth. But I’ll need more immediate proof than things that may or may not happen tomorrow.”

Gavin’s heart was in his throat. “Like?”

“The deviant base,” Elijah said promptly. “Where is it?”

Holy shit.

Hank had believed that Elijah had just been yanking their chain. But if that was the proof Elijah needed, then Connor had walked away from the most valuable informant he could have asked for.

With his thoughts going in a million different directions, Gavin answered. “In an abandoned shipyard in the Ferndale district. An old freighter, Jericho. Just don’t ask me how many live there right now, ‘cause I don’t know.”

And Elijah . . . Elijah suddenly looked so damn _lost._

“So it is,” he whispered, a finger tapping at the rim of his forgotten glass of bourbon.  His eyes flickered to Gavin, uncertainty stealing across his face. “Do you know why I left CyberLife?”

Gavin just shook his head.

“Officially, my shareholders and I had a disagreement over business strategy, and when we couldn’t find a suitable compromise, I stepped down. For the growth of the company.”

Gavin sat with baited breath. “And unofficially?”

Much like Gavin, Elijah knocked back the rest of his drink in one go. “The disagreement was actually over ethics, not strategy. They were presented with irrefutable proof that they were creating sentient life with dormant souls. They had the proof right there, but it was only one android out of thousands. They preferred to bury the knowledge under stricter programming and protocols, than to have their client base find out. But the information was about to be released to the public. They had to protect their profits, you see. The whistle-blower needed to be dealt with.”

There were so many red flags that Gavin felt sick, but he had to ask. He had to _know_. “And the would be whistle-blower?” He asked Elijah. “What happened to them?”

“Silenced after losing the last good thing in their life.”

And then Elijah was sliding his sleeve up to his elbow and offering his arm in the exact same way Gavin had when he first arrived.

No. No, no, _no_.

Gavin didn’t want to, but his eyes fell down to the exposed skin.

It took everything he had not to puke up the bourbon suddenly burning a hole in his gut.

Because Elijah had a soulmark too.

There it was, cracked and grey and written in perfect CyberLife Sans.

CHLOE RT600

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been sitting on this mountain of info for what feels like forever! Next chap we get to meet the rest of the girls and Gavin for finally gets some direction. Super curious to know how you guys felt about this one. We are nearing the homestretch guys!
> 
> Until next time!!


	9. Chapter 9

**LOOP #272**

**November 7, 2038**

 

Gavin felt like the rug had been ripped right out from under his feet.

Elijah told him everything. 

Well, probably not _everything_ , but enough to paint a crystal clear picture. 

Gavin couldn’t blame him for leaving gaps. Hell, Gavin had so many memories from previous loops that were too painful to _think_ about, much less share with someone else. So he got it. 

And as it turned out, Elijah’s soulmark appeared the moment he had first activated Chloe. 

Which was also happened the same day as the accident.

So, on top of being a shitty friend, Gavin was a shitty brother too. 

All these years Gavin had been so fucking pissed off at his brother for not showing up to the hospital. So angry and bitter that Elijah’s science projects were more important than his family. 

But it was just the opposite, wasn’t it?

Their family had suddenly grown by one, and when Elijah had gotten the call about the accident he was still freaking out over what to do with the one-sided soulmark. With the kinda reception Gavin ended up giving him, no wonder he decided to hide it from the world. In one fell swoop, Elijah had gained a soulmate but lost the only family that really gave a damn about him. 

Chloe’s mark didn’t appear until a few years later, hours after that televised interview that Gavin had seen clips of had been filmed.

“We had an argument about it,” Elijah said, eyes distant and his freshly refilled glass hovering right in front of his lips. “First time we argued about anything. Until then I didn’t know we _could_ argue about anything. But when she said she didn’t have a soul, I was livid. Not my finest moment, but Chloe and Amanda were all I had left, you see. I said some things I didn’t actually mean.” He smiled then, wistful, clearly lost in the memory. “She essentially deviated to call me out for being an asshole.” 

Gavin wished he could have met her, especially if she still made Elijah smile like that. 

But she was gone, her soul destroyed during an unauthorized test in the R&D department. When she had been returned to Elijah, everything had been destroyed and then wiped so clean that he had never been able to figure out everything that they had done to her. Though he had repaired her body, and had recreated as much of the original programming as he could, it was no use. The body functioned, but only at a quarter of its original capacity. 

After trying everything he could possibly think of, Elijah eventually accepted that he could never recover her soul, and that his mark would never be anything other than grey.

The only person who had known the truth had been Amanda, and it was heavily implied that her untimely death had been anything but natural. 

And so, with no family and no allies to turn to, Elijah had quietly disappeared. 

He had kept Chloe’s body, empty shell though it was, because he couldn’t stand the thought of her lying in a scrapyard to rust. 

By the time Elijah stopped talking, his glass had been empty for a while and his gaze was distant. 

Gavin scooted closer, stealing the whole bottle of bourbon and poured his brother another generous helping. 

“I wanna tear it all down.”

Elijah’s eyes met his sharply, as if trying to analyze the sincerity of his statement. 

Well, he could look all he wants, because Gavin was dead serious. As soon as the words had left his mouth, the thought had settled into his mind and crystallized.

“You mean, expose CyberLife?” Elijah asked. 

As if he could mean anything else.

A grim nod. “Yep.”

Because _fuck_ CyberLife.

Gavin wanted CyberLife to _burn_. He wanted to watch it all go up in smoke and collapse into a pile of ash. He wanted to watch every fucking member on that board to go through the same suffering that he and Elijah had been through.

And even then, it would never be enough.

 _Never_.

But it would be a fucking start.

“I wanna make sure that androids win their revolution. I want Connor to be free of CyberLife. I want them to know that he’s not their puppet that they can play with whenever they fucking feel like it. I want the world to recognize that androids are people, and that the company that built them _knew_ _it_.”

Gavin poured himself a glass as well, then gave Elijah a feral grin. “I wanna bring it all down.” He raised his glass and tilted it towards his brother. “You in?”

His answer was a smirk and the harsh clink of two glasses meeting.

  


Elijah had led them to a well lit workshop that was hidden below the main floor of the house. It was clear it was modeled after the one Gavin remembered seeing all those years ago. Computers and Machines everywhere, with one small couch tucked into the corner. The whole space was a bizarre mix of sterile and untidy, and so typical _Elijah_ that it immediately put Gavin at ease.

That is, until Elijah opened his mouth.

“Good morning, ladies! I hope you rested well, because we have a lot of work to do, and, unfortunately, not a lot of time to do it.”

Two blonde androids turned to stare at them. One had been lounging on the couch while she braided her hair, and the other had been putting a stack of tablets next to a bunch of monitors. 

LED’s flashed red and yellow respectively, and Gavin felt the sudden urge to hide. 

The one closest to them eyed them up and down before her jaw fell open. It was wild to see Chloe’s face look so scandalized, but there it was. 

“Elijah, are you drunk?”

“Only a little, my dear.” 

That was a blatant lie. The two of them had polished off most of a bottle of _very_ expensive bourbon, but Gavin didn’t call him on it.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to. 

“You are! Elijah, it’s only 8:30!”

“Never mind that,” Elijah said with a dismissive wave. He grabbed Gavin by the sleeve and tugged him further into the room and beckoned the girls closer. “Come here, please, both of you, there’s someone you need to meet.”

Trapped and not knowing what else to do, Gavin waved awkwardly with his free hand. “Uh, hi.”

The one who had talked just crossed her arms and pinned him with an unimpressed look. The other one who had been braiding her hair was standing nervously behind her shoulder, her LED still flashing red. 

Elijah patted his shoulder. “Girls, let me introduce you to my younger brother, Gavin Reed. Gavin, these are my housemates, Valerie and Nadine. Valerie is my eyes and ears, and Nadine-”

“Makes sure I don’t kill you for pulling crap like this,” Valerie cut in, still looking unimpressed. Then again, if Valerie was the one in charge of keeping tabs on Gavin, then she had good reason to be upset. Elijah did just let a known anti-android police officer into their home.

If Gavin was a deviant in her position, he’d be upset too.

“Now, Val-”

“Why is he here Eli?”

There was something hanging in the air, some tension that Gavin had no context for, and the two just stared each other down. Much to Gavin’s the surprise, Elijah was the first to give.

“It’s time, Val. Revolution is coming, and Gavin here would see it succeed.”

Valerie’s eyes pierced into Gavin, making him squirm. He blamed it firmly on the booze and not on the fact that she scared him just a little bit.

“Why?” She demanded coldly.

“Because he has something to lose if it doesn’t. Don’t you?” 

All focus was now on Nadine, who’s LED was now a calm blue. She put her hand on Valerie’s shoulder as she stepped past her to stand before Gavin. Her voice was as soft as her smile as she met his stare, and her words were smooth like water, where Valerie was all harsh edges. She held out her hands. “May I see?”

Gavin was just drunk enough not to question it. Shrugging free of Elijah’s hands, he pulled up his sleeve and offered Connor’s name and serial number for her inspection. 

She traced the name with delicate fingers, her pale skin standing in contrast to the tan of Gavin’s own and the bright thirium blue of his soulmark. 

“What’s going to happen after, if we do win? What do you want with him?”

There was so much that Gavin _wanted_. He wanted to actually ask Connor out. He wanted to watch Connor experience the world and develop preferences. He wanted Connor to come home with him to meet Briggs and maybe watch a movie or something. He still wanted to take Connor to that beach.

But, ultimately, it came down to one thing, didn’t it?

“I just want him to get a chance to live.”

Oh, god, he clearly had way too much bourbon in him if he sounded that close to crying. 

Nadine hummed a bit, and then those blue eyes were back on him, so focused that Gavin wondered if she could see into his soul. Then she asked, “What if he doesn’t want you there, in his life?”

This one was easier to answer. 

This was a question he’s been asking himself for a long time, especially in the wake of his mistakes. He had imagined so many scenarios around it that he already knew what he was going to do if it came to that. 

It wasn’t going to be easy, but he knew what he was going to do. 

“Then that’s his choice,” Gavin told her.

After all, Connor didn’t owe him anything.

If Connor wanted to walk away, then Gavin was going to let him. It would hurt like a son of a bitch, and Gavin was sure he would never be able to properly move on, mourning what could have been, but he wouldn’t stop him. He didn’t have the right.

At least Gavin would still have his soulmark. And as long as it remained vibrant and blue, then Gavin could deal with spending the rest of his life alone.

He _could_. 

“Gavin?”

He blinked away tears he didn’t know he was shedding and tilted his head to look over at his brother, who’s own eyes looked suspiciously over-bright.

For a moment he had forgotten that Elijah was there. Now there were fingers digging into the back of his jacket, and the weight of the gentle tug was both familiar and comforting. It had been years, but it was what Elijah always did when he wanted to offer comfort but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

Gavin’s breath hitched and he couldn’t stop it. 

Maybe his relationship with Elijah wasn’t as unsalvageable as he had feared.

Maybe he didn’t _have_ to be alone at the end of all this, even if Connor did decide to leave. Maybe, just _maybe,_ he could have his brother back.

With the possibility of adding two blond deviants to his nonexistent list of allies. 

Because Nadine was holding his hand now, cupping it between both of her palms and squeezing it gently. Quiet determination stole across her face as she and Valerie shared a quick look, both of their LED’s cycling yellow before falling to a steady blue.

Nadine smiled that fucking soft smile and said, “Why don’t you tell us what we need to know, and then we’ll figure out how to help? Okay?”

Gavin gave a shaky nod and breathed out an answering, “Okay.”

“Okay. Now let’s go back to the kitchen. I’ll make breakfast so you two can sober up. Then we’ll talk.”

Next thing Gavin knew, he was being gently towed out of the room. He let himself be led without a fuss. 

For the first time in a long time, Gavin felt a glimmer of hope.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just take a moment to say how much I appreciate you guys? First and foremost, I write for myself, but seeing you guys enjoying the crazy coaster right along with me being is . . . So fucking AWESOME. 
> 
> As of now Running Uphill is my most subscribed to fic that I have ever written. It shot past Aporia by 50 subscribers. 
> 
> And as we approach the last couple of chapters all I can think is how much I love the Detroit community, and how thankful I am that I’m in such good company. 
> 
> I love you guys. 
> 
> Now, let’s get our boy a game plan, shall we?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my beautiful new reader who pointed out some loop numbering errors! I tried to fix it, but please let me know if they’re still wonky. I don’t use a beta reader, so all mistakes are my own! 
> 
> Enjoy!

**LOOP #272**

**November 7, 2038**

  
  


Gavin laid out the whole timeline for them as Nadine and Chloe cooked breakfast for him and Elijah. 

He went as accurate and in-depth as he could manage.  He pointed out the things that ne noticed fluxed the most, and what seemed to stay steady regardless of the lead-up. He made his goals perfectly clear, just so that there was no confusion. These were non-negotiable, the things that Gavin needed to see to completion.

Connor freed from whatever strings Cyberlife had tethered him with.

Hank saved from the second RK800, and then, possibly, from himself.

The very foundations ripped out from under one of the largest companies in the world.

You know, just for starters.

No pressure. 

“Well, I already see a problem,” Valerie said from her perch on the kitchen counter. 

Gavin hastily swallowed his last bite of omelette, and wiped his mouth with the back of his knuckle. “Yeah? And that is?”

“We currently don’t have enough information to pull it off. Ah!” She jabbed a finger at Elijah, who had apparently opened his mouth to speak. “I didn’t say I wasn’t willing to  _ try _ . But I’m telling you right now, we’re seriously lacking intel. About CyberLife, and about Connor’s programming for starters. We don’t know what happens when Connor infiltrates the tower, or who else was there. Hacking into CyberLife’s surveillance system is easy enough, but their data banks are more tricky. Without knowing exactly what I’m looking for, it could be a week before I find anything useful. But we’re going to need a lot more than just  _ useful _ .”

“Whatever we dig up needs to be rock solid to ruin CyberLife, and we’re gonna need a lot of it,” Gavin muttered, biting at his thumb. He’s been an officer long enough, he should know this. “Plus, Connor doesn't have a week.” 

“Exactly,” Valerie nodded, snapping her fingers at him. “Which brings me to my next point.” She slides off the counter to accept a glass of something blue and carbonated from Nadine, who had come to nudge at her elbow. “Let’s say we don’t reach our goal in this loop, or even the next. How are you going to approach us about it?” She took a sip of what Gavin believed to be some sort of thirium, and then gestured with the glass between Gavin and Elijah. “This is all well and good, but if we have to wait for you guys to sober up every time you loop, it’s going to become a time sink.”

Right.

Fair point.

Gavin had barely absorbed the fact that he could actually rebuild his relationship with his brother, so the thought of their progress disappearing so soon was like a slap to the face. Their talk was so hard to get through once, and Gavin wasn’t looking forward to having to do it again.

He would, of course, if he needed to. 

But he wasn’t looking forward to it.  

Gavin turned to his brother, to see what his thoughts were.

Elijah hummed as he absently pushed the remnants of his own omelette around his plate. He looked at Gavin. “Now, that is a problem, isn’t it.”

“You could text me.”

All eyes fell to Nadine, who was busy drying dishes as Chloe finished washing them. She had just finished drying a pan when she seemed to realize everyone was staring, and paused in her work. “What?”

“Text you?” Gavin parroted incredulously.

“Well, think about it.” Nadine put the pan aside accepted the next dish Chloe handed her. “While Val, and I are both registered under Elijah, that’s just our serial numbers. No one outside this house knows our names and no one should be able to message us directly. Much less  _ you. _ It’ll give you credibility prior to your arrival, if nothing else. A small detail that could have only come from one of us. The more of those you have, the more likely we are to believe you.” 

Made sense. Valerie would be the more aggressive one to approach, and Eli might very well delete any message Gavin tried to send him. And Chloe was . . . well, Gavin now knew why Chloe was so strange, didn’t he? 

Nadine was the logical choice, of course.

That could actually work.

“What do you think?”

Gavin felt breathless. “I think I can memorize a number.”

Nadine gave him another one of her small smiles and nodded decisively. “Good. That’s settled then.”

Emotion swelled in his chest, sudden and overwhelming, and Gavin didn’t know what to do with it.

For the first time, he had a contingency plan. He had a firm place to start when the next loop kicks in.

It’s more than he’s had in a long,  _ long _ time.

  
  


They spent the rest of the day creating a skeleton of a plan. 

They debated the merits of various approaches, listed out where they needed to focus their attention to gather the most information possible. Then they streamlined it so Gavin could easily lay it out to them, so they could try to pick up where they left off in the next loop.

Because the one thing they all agreed on was that they needed to know more before they could create the  _ real  _ plan.

For the first time ever, Gavin was just a tiny bit excited to make it to the next loop.

Because then, theoretically, he should be one step closer to saving Connor and breaking out of this Hell.

And so, with that thought feeding a tiny glimmer of hope, they began.

  
  
  


**LOOP #272**

**November 8, 2038**

 

The next day an alarm on Gavin’s phone went off. 

He blatantly ignored all his missed calls and texts, and gathered Elijah and the girls. He turned on Elijah’s ridiculously large TV just in time for Markus to appear on the screen to make his announcement to the world. 

Gavin and Elijah stood shoulder to shoulder, so Gavin was able to feel it when his brother flinched and breathed out, “Oh.”

Gavin whipped around, immediately on high alert. “Oh? Good ‘oh’? Bad ‘oh’? What the fuck does that even mean,  _ ‘oh’ _ ?”

“You never said that he was  _ that  _ Markus.”

“Somehow, that was even  _ more  _ cryptic,” Gavin deadpanned. 

Elijah had the nerve to roll his eyes before he explained. “Not long before my company and I parted ways, I made a one of a kind android for a friend of mine who had been in a horrible accident. He was left paralyzed, you see, and would be in need of assistance after he recovered. It was the only RK200 ever built, and it was the most sophisticated design I had ever done. My friend named him Markus, and treated him like a son, so I would have never expected, well,  _ this  _ from him.” He paused. “Well, With Carl’s influence I guess I shouldn’t be  _ that _ surprised.”

Gavin stared. “You’re telling me that you  _ hand built _ the Android Messiah? Of fucking  _ course _ you did.”

“If it’s any consolation, it was completely unintentional.”

“I totally believe you.” Gavin really didn’t, but that was beside the point. “Wait, did you say RK200? So he’s, what, the same series as Connor?”

“Technically. CyberLife has the blueprints for his design, after all, so it’s very likely that they modeled parts of the RK800 after it.”

“Huh.” Gavin bit at his knuckle in thought, then bent forward so he could look over at Valerie. “Hey Val, can you use that connection to find something useful?”

Valerie smirked, and tilted her head a bit. “At the very least, it’s a great place to start.”

Gavin would take that.

Fuck, he would take that.

  
  


“Elijah, you need to see this.”

It was early evening, and all of them had gathered in the workshop. 

Elijah looked over at Valerie. He excused himself from Gavin and handed him the tablet they had been looking over together. Once at Valerie’s workstation, he planted a hand on the desk to look at the monitor over her shoulder.

There were several long moments of quiet. Suddenly, Elijah stiffened, straightened up then stormed out of the workshop with a stony look on his face.

Valerie swiveled in her chair to watch him go. Gavin could tell that she was debating going after him. 

Nadine rose from her spot on the couch. “I got him, Val.”

Gavin watched as she disappeared after his brother.

“What was that about?” He asked.

Valerie sighed then waved him over begrudgingly. She wheeled herself away as Gavin approached so he had better access to the screen. “See for yourself.”

Hands shoved in his pockets, Gavin leaned in to read.

It was some sort of report, Gavin could tell that much, but it was full of technical jargon. The only words that really popped out at him were the ones that kept repeating. RT600, and RK700 were mentioned several times and something called Cognitive Transfer seemed to be a running theme throughout the entire document.

Gavin cleared his throat. “Um. What am I looking at? Sorry, I’m way out of my wheelhouse, and most of this is gibberish to me.”

Valerie gave another sigh, but thankfully she answered anyway. “We found a connection to your Connor and whatever they did to Chloe.” She points to the words  _ Cognitive Transfer _ . “So, the technology that lets your boy body hop was developed based on whatever experiments they used to destroy her. From what I could gather, if they could successfully transfer the soul of an android from one body to another, then there was going to be research proposed to attempt something similar in humans.” 

“Shit.”

Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly hate CyberLife any more.

Gavin could just see the avenues  _ that  _ would lead to. Potential immortality for the ultra rich, if you were willing to pay the price tag and had twisted morals. Because something like this . . . there’s no doubt in Gavin’s mind that the testing for this would come with a body count.

_ Fuck _ .

How many androids had to die before they succeeded with them?

Oh god, that was a horrible thought.

“Is Connor the only one?” He asked. “With the ability, I mean.”

“Currently, yes.” Valerie pointed to another segment. “They weren’t successful until they fully developed the RK700. But there were problems. They found the RK700 difficult to control, and apparently too prone to quick deviation. It’s insinuated that several technicians were injured during testing. The model was scrapped and the RK800 was put into immediate development.”

People murdered because they became self-aware too quickly, for a company trying to play god.

Gavin felt sick.

“And, Gavin . . .”

He met Valerie’s eyes, and immediately knew she was debating whether or not to continue. “Connor’s current body is unit number 51. They started at 1. Just thought you should know.”

A million thoughts ran through his mind, but only one left his mouth. 

“Connor was alive before August.”

Gavin  _ knew  _ that Connor’s memories only spanned back to August. Back to the mission where he saved three lives, not the two listed in the news. A little girl, a cop, and a fish. A dwarf gourami, Connor had told him while he lay dying in his arms.

But Connor had been alive before that. And who knew how many times his memory had been altered, or erased, reset back to factory settings, only to do it all again.

How long had Connor been trapped in his own hell before Gavin had been trapped in his?

Connor was alive before August.

“Yes he was.”

Gavin breathed in deep and let it out slow.

CyberLife was going down. Gavin had already sworn it. 

He would see to it personally. 

As many times as it took. 

“Okay,” He said. It wasn’t, but he couldn’t focus on that right now. Later, maybe, but not now. “What else did you find out?”

  
  


**LOOP #272**

**November 9, 2038**

 

In the chaos of planning and gathering a mountain of new information, Gavin had completely forgotten about Hank and Connor’s visit. 

He had been up all night, taking notes and committing as much as he could to memory. Like specific folder names, and test dates, anything that would quicken Valerie’s search next time around. 

Gavin vaguely remembered making coffee for himself and sitting at the table, but he must have nodded off at some point. 

Regardless, he was wide awake now. 

He was thrown into awareness by Hank’s voice booming through the house. And he sounded  _ pissed.  _

As soon as Gavin registered what was being said, he scrambled to do damage control. 

“Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ tell me he’s not here! His damn car is sitting right in front of your house! If you say that one more goddamn time, then I’m going to drag you outside and arrest you for the abduction of a police officer!”

“Whoa, whoa,  _ whoa _ !” Gavin darted into the room and swept in between Hank and Elijah, who had personally answered his own door for once in his goddamn life. He pushed Hank back into the doorway. “Cool it, Hank! I’m fine! See? I’m-”

Gavin shut up as Hank fucking  _ Anderson _ grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him for a bone crushing hug. He was still in shock when Hank pulled back to shake him by his arms. “What the hell were you thinking, Reed?! Tina has been losing her  _ shit _ , you dumbass! You can’t just drop off the map like that!  _ Especially  _ with all the crazy shit going on! Where the fuck is your phone?”

“In his hand, Lieutenant,” Connor answered for him, somewhere beyond Hank’s shoulder.

Gavin looked down, and yep, there was his phone clutched in his left hand. He must have grabbed it out of habit during his mad dash, because he didn’t even remember doing it

He leaned a bit to the side so he could actually see Connor around Hank’s bulk. 

There he was, not five feet away, looking genuinely pleased to see him. It was subtle thing, but it was there in his eyes and the soft twist of his lips. It was the softest expression he’d ever seen from Connor. “Hello, Detective Reed.”

Gavin felt breathless. “Hi, Connor.”

Had Connor been worried about him? Was he as relieved as Hank to see him alive and well?

Gavin didn’t dare hope.

Hank looked from Gavin, to Connor, and then leveled Elijah with a dead-eyed stare. “Did you replace the real Reed with an android? Because if you had done that a bit earlier, then it could have saved the precinct a lot of drama.”

“Oh, fuck off old man!”

“If only it were that simple.”

“You too, Eli!”

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Hank groaned. He let Gavin go.  “You’re related to this asshole, aren’t you?”

“I . . . Uh,” Gavin didn’t know what to say. What was he  _ supposed  _ to say?

Elijah moved to stand beside Gavin.

“Half- brothers, as it were,” Elijah said, sounding both incredibly bored and done with the whole situation. “Haven’t seen him for years, and then he shows up on my doorstep and refuses to leave. If I had known he wasn’t keeping others informed, then I would have been more serious in my attempts to evict him.”

Hank gave Gavin a look as if waiting for him to confirm or deny it.

He just shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, he’s not wrong. Thought I could get some intel on some of the wild crap going on.”

“And?” Hank pressed impatiently.

Elijah stepped in, again, thank fuck. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. Any sort of issues society is currently having with androids is of no concern to me.”

“Not your company, not your problem, huh?”

“Precisely.”

 

Gavin eventually got Hank to leave with a promise that he’d actually show up for work tomorrow. He watched them drive away, knowing full well the chaos they would be walking in to.

He promised himself that next time he’d move his car into the garage.

  
  
  


**LOOP #272**

**November 11, 2038**

 

The rest of the timeline happened, just like Gavin expected it to.

With one difference, of course. 

This was the first time Gavin got to see exactly what went down in CyberLife tower, thanks to Valerie tapping into the security feed. 

God, did that go sideways real quick.

Connor was compromised before he even entered the building. He escaped the elevator in one piece, but left a trail of bodies in his wake. And to top all that off, Gavin now knew why CybeLife had the other RK800 take Hank. 

_ Leverage _ . 

Fuck CyberLife. 

And then came the part that never got any easier, no matter how many times he witnessed it.

Two bullets and a faded soulmark. 

And in one fell swoop, an entire revolution was lost as soon as it was won. 

A glass of amber liquid was held in front of his nose. “The Zen Garden.”

Gavin took the glass but stared at Elijah blankly as he sat down next to him

“Small details that only I should know, right? Well, the next time you see me, say that Connor has some version of the Zen Garden.”

“What is that?”

“My homage to Amanda Stern, who fostered my love of developing AI. I originally constructed it as an educational program. A virtual garden where students could learn in a peaceful atmosphere. An AI dwells within the garden, a mentor designed and modeled after my own instructor. Amanda. She was supposed to be teaching the young minds of future generations.”

“Something tells me it didn’t happen that way.”

“Yes, well, when did anything in my life go according to plan?”

Guilt and pain lanced through Gavin’s chest. He nodded slowly, accepting his own part in that statement.

“It wasn’t all bad, though.”

Gavin looked at his brother dubiously. “No?”

Elijah gave a sad, wistful smile. There was a long stretch of silence where the two of them sat there drinking, and Gavin thought that was the end of it.

But then more did come, so soft and quiet, it was barely audible.

“Sarah would have liked Connor.”

So much was said in that tiny sentence, that Gavin felt he could choke on it. But that one sentence, whether or not he ever heard it again, in this loop or the next, meant the world to him.

Gavin wrestled his voice past the lump in his throat. “Yeah, well, I think mom would have liked Chloe, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh high holy hell, I did not mean to leave you guys hanging for so long! Thank you all so much for your patience and your comments, and hello to my new readers! You guys give me life, seriously. 
> 
> So, news! I’m now an artist for TWO authors for the Convin Big Bang, so I’m going to be putting most of my creative energy towards that, because my authors are awesome and absolutely deserve my best work. So while I’ll still be chipping away at the next chapter, it might not be ready until October. 
> 
> I have a few (belated) ficlets for DBH Rare Pair Week (round 2) that will also be going up soon, so feel free to check those out as well!
> 
> As always, if you guys wanna pester me or ask questions about my stories, or even about weird headcanons, feel free to leave a comment here or on my Tumblr (sharysisnhmoonshadow).  
> Happy reading everyone!- Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Fair Warning: I plan to finish Aporia before I dive too deep into this, but I have this train wreck completely planned out. Buckle up kids, this ride is gonna get rough.


End file.
